


Sunrise in Seoul

by anon7912



Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming Out, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Heteronormativity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, No Smut, Romance, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, and they were roommates!, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 88,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29697951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anon7912/pseuds/anon7912
Summary: Something about Juyeon reminds Hyunjae of home — of the people in their little town who had soft edges like the whisper of elm trees that sprawled across his county. He may be a city boy, a Seoulite through and through, but Juyeon feels like Uiseong-gun: air so crisp that it’s sharp in your lungs, easy manners and warm hospitality.Or; Hyunjae moves to Seoul and finds that while home might be too big for one place, it's small enough to fit into one person.
Relationships: Bae Joonyoung | Jacob/Moon Hyungseo | Kevin, Lee Jaehyun | Hyunjae/Lee Juyeon, Lee Sangyeon/Son Youngjae | Eric
Comments: 95
Kudos: 161





	1. I.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! 
> 
> Welcome to my newest project and fic - this is kind of a short chapter just to get everything started. This fic has occupied my every waking thought these last few months and it is finally here! The work is 99% of the way written and over 110k thus far, so please, strap in. This is the SLOWEST of burns; it's going to be quite the ride. 
> 
> The fic is rated M for implied sexual content and non-explicit sexual scenes, along with certain mature subjects such as internalised homophobia, heteronormativity and mental health issues. I will TW tag appropriately in the author's notes at the beginning of each chapter, so please heed those carefully. As always, consider if you are at an age where it is appropriate for you to be reading this fic.
> 
> Also, there is obvious discussion of the rural-urban divide, and I wanted to clarify that these are only based on my experiences of rural-to-urban life, and not representative of all experiences. 
> 
> Enjoy!

When Jaehyun announces he’s moving to Seoul, it’s a reasonably surprising revelation. 

After all, hardly anyone from his small provincial city in Uiseong-gun ever leaves the county, let alone travels four hours by train to the country’s capital. Jaehyun grew up in a countryside-adjacent-city where you were born there, got married there, had two to three children there and were laid to rest there.

That’s what was expected of him, and of every other person he’s ever known growing up.

So perhaps this is why, when at twenty five he announces to his parents that he’s leaving for Seoul in a month, they’re understandably flabbergast.

His mother puts down her chopsticks and regards him with open upset over a table of banchan, rice and soup. “What do you mean you’re moving to Seoul?” she asks incredulously.

“This is not the kind of joke we appreciate you making, son,” Jaehyun’s father adds on. His bushy eyebrows are furrowed, and as Jaehyun sets his own bowl down, he dimly thinks back to when his father last had his brows trimmed.

“I’m not joking,” he says instead, plainly and patiently. “I’ve been planning this for years now — I never told you because I wasn’t sure if it would actually happen.”

Beside him, his sister snorts. Of course, she had been privy to the whole thing; how he had added up every last penny in his bank account and the secret hideaways where he tucked spare cash in their shared bedroom, the countless hours he’d spent scrolling through Craigslist and Facebook to find a roommate. She knows all of this but keeps conspicuously silent now, and Jaehyun wants to knock his knee into hers like he used to when they were kids.

“What do you- _years?_ ” his mother echoes. “I don’t understand—”

“He’s not going anywhere, yeobo,” Jaehyun’s father interrupts. “This is absurd, do you know how expensive the capital is? You’ll never be able to—”

“Actually, he will.” His sister’s voice is amused but firm when she finally pipes up. “He’s saved enough to survive for a year. I mean, it’ll be a miserable year if he doesn’t make more money, but a full year.”

Jaehyun smiles at her from behind the hand holding his chin, and she smirks back. Anything for her baby brother, she’d always said.

“It’s not a big deal, eomma, appa, seriously. It’s only for a while, a year or two maybe, and then I’ll be back,” Jaehyun says placatingly. “I’ve always wanted to live in Seoul, you know that, and I want to do it now before I have to think about settling down.”

Under his breath, Jaehyun’s father grumbles _should already be thinking about settling down_ but otherwise, the table is silent. Jaehyun’s mother seems to still be processing, her large eyes blinking rapidly at her son over their cooling dinner as she opens and closes her mouth.

“What about Kim Sunyoung-ssi’s daughter?” she finally says.

Jaehyun’s older sister chokes on a laugh. 

“What about her, eomma?” Jaehyun asks in between bewildered chuckles.

A red flush blooms on his mother’s pale cheeks and she waves her chopsticks vexedly at Jaehyun. “You- how could you forget? I asked you last week if you didn’t mind being set up with her for dinner next Saturday — did you forget? You lousy boy, I _told_ you—”

Jaehyun laughs out loud and catches his mother’s erratic hands in his own. “Eomma, eomma!” he interrupts. “I didn’t forget! That’s next Saturday, I’m not leaving for a few weeks at least — not till the school year is over anyway.”

Jaehyun’s mother frowns at him reproachfully, but lets her son rub soothing circles on the backs of her hands. “Well why take her out at all if you’re just going to be gone right after?” she complains. “We really thought she might be good for you to settle down with, Jaehyun-ah, she’s such a sweet girl and her parents are old friends.”

Beside him, his sister stuffs a spoonful of rice into her mouth. “Jesus, eomma, s’a little early to be matchmaking don’t you think?” she asks, mid-chew and leg propped up on her chair.

Jaehyun’s mother jerks her hands out of Jaehyun’s to swat at her daughter. “Yah, can you sit like a lady please, you-!” 

Jiwoo laughs and darts out of the way. “Sorry, sorry, I forgot about all of my potential suitors and their undying concern for my table manners,” she teases before opening her lips to reveal a revolting sight of masticated grain. 

They all collectively groan, and Jaehyun’s father, silent until now, points his chopsticks threateningly at Jiwoo. 

“You should be more afraid, young lady,” he says sternly. “At twenty seven, all the ahjummas are saying you’ll be left on the shelf permanently by next winter.” 

Jiwoo sticks her tongue out, and Jaehyun sees, to his disgust, a tiny grain of rice stuck to the corner of her mouth. “A man should be so lucky as to catch my twenty eight year old self,” she says with an arched brow. “Aged like fine wine, I am.”

Jaehyun snorts, and just like that, the subject of him leaving everything he’s ever known behind dissolves into the usual dinnertime chatter. 

Although they’ll probably talk more about this at length later on, he never really thought his parents would put up a fight — not when he hasn’t given them a single reason to doubt him in twenty five years. He’s earned this, after twenty five years of being a good son.  
  


* * *

  
Jaehyun has always been told he’s a good boy. 

In Uiseong-eup, being a good boy means a few things, and to be fair they’re all reasonably simple. 

When he was two, his parents took him to see a monk in the mountains who told fortunes. The monk handed a cup full of wooden sticks to Jaehyun the infant and he dutifully picked one. To his parents’ delight, the monk read the stars and a little twig of pine and told them Jaehyun would be a successful, dutiful child. 

When he was six, Jaehyun enrolled in the local primary school. At the school gates, he shed two tears for his parents before waddling into the classroom, and later that afternoon, came back with a haphazardly coloured picture. The teacher told his eomma that he was a “remarkably bright child”. His parents beamed, and so began Jaehyun’s career as a good student with mostly perfect grades.

When he was eight, he joined the school choir. His father worried that it would be too “girly” for a growing boy, so Jaehyun took up tennis too. Jaehyun’s parents were happy when, at the winter performance, Jaehyun sang his solo with newly formed bicep muscles developing under his perfectly pressed white shirt.

When he was thirteen, Jaehyun got picked to be class president. At fifteen, he was awarded scholarship money by the county for being the best student in the regional exams, and Jaehyun split the winnings 70-20-10 between his parents, his sister and himself respectively.

When he was seventeen, Jaehyun had his first kiss in a playground. The sun was warm as it tickled his skin, and her name was Jung Soojin. Her lips on Jaehyun’s made him blush a little, and she tasted like strawberry lip balm. When he got home that night, he told his mother and father about it, and they smiled and said that a “good boy like him deserved some fun.”

Even so, when he fell asleep that night, Jaehyun could barely remember what the kiss felt like, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

By the time he graduated high school, Jaehyun picked the local university instead of the more prestigious one in Busan because the local university offered him a free ride and how could he say no to that when his father was set to retire in a few years? 

University was easy — good friends, good grades, a few good dates, even, with good girls who had perfect teeth.

After four years, he graduated, as he had always done, with flying colours and began teaching music theory and mathematics at his old high school. It wasn’t quite what his parents had hoped he would do with his engineering degree, but it was safe. A simple, respectable life.

So in all senses of the term, Jaehyun is a good boy. Normal. The perfect son.  
  


* * *

  
At twenty five, Jaehyun stands in his childhood bedroom across from his sister who sits with a small, melancholy smile on his bed.

“I can’t believe you’re really going,” she says quietly. “I mean, I know you’ve been planning this, but still. It’s crazy that it’s actually happening.”

Jaehyun smiles too, and sits beside her. “I know. But this — I don’t know, I just felt like I had to do this. For me y’know, noona?” 

Jiwoo runs her fingers - slim and alabaster like Jaehyun’s - through his dark brown hair and nods. “Yeah, course. You’ve been doing everything, living the perfect life for our parents; I get it. You never left like I did, and you should.” She pauses and looks at Jaehyun fondly. “I’m proud of you.”

Jaehyun ducks his face into his hands, pushing his sister away when she coos _so shy!_ into his cheek and stands up so that she falls half on her face onto the duvet. “Can you shut up,” he whines. “So embarrassing.”

She grins at him from the worn blanket before sitting up. “Okay, so you have everything right? Wallet, phone, backpack- and the guy knows you’re coming?”

Jaehyun chuckles as he slings his bag and additional carry-on duffel onto his shoulders. “For the last time, yes, he knows I’m coming. He literally texted me last night with a picture of my boxes getting dropped off by the delivery company. He’s not a serial killer.”

Jiwoo widens her eyes comically and shrugs. “Jaehyun-ah, you never know. You found him on Craigslist. How is that website still legal in South Korea?”

Jaehyun shoves her with his duffel, and she darts out of the way, caramel hair flying. “Shut up! Seriously, you’re gonna freak me out. I’ll call you when I get there so you know I’m alive.” 

His sister’s hand rests on his arm as they walk out of their bedroom together. “And just in case I need to give a police statement, your new roommate’s name is…”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, but grins anyway. “Lee Juyeon.”  
  


* * *

  
As the train pulls away from the station, Jaehyun jokingly presses his fingertips to the window in a silly parody of a dramatic movie goodbye. He does it because his eomma is openly crying and waving her hand desperately as the train begins making its way into the horizon, and Jaehyun hates seeing his mother cry. 

(His father has his hand raised in the air, unmoving and stoic, but it makes Jaehyun’s heart twinge all the same.)

By the time they’re nothing more than a pinprick in the distance, he lowers his body down from the window by his seat and settles into the scratchy fabric. Behind the dust-speckled window, Uiseong-gun slips farther and farther away, and Jaehyun watches as fields of green so vivid they look wet slowly melt into dirt roads lined by miles of weedy nothingness. He chews on his lip. It’s an unsettling feeling.

Jaehyun considers texting Jiwoo, or one of his friends from university. He considers it, but then he doesn’t because —

Because that would feel like admitting defeat before he’d even left their small rural county. Instead, he pulls up the messaging app and clicks on one of the contacts there.

It’s not a long string of messages by any means, maybe thirty or so in total. An initial stilted greeting, then facts and figures, then logistics. The last message Jaehyun had received was a little smiley face, sweet with blushing cheeks.

He sighs, and his fingers tap their way across his screen.

_Hey Juyeon._

He almost doesn’t expect a response, not when it’s seven AM on a Saturday morning, and yet, not a moment later, his phone buzzes.

_Hey hyung! What’s up?_

Jaehyun’s eyebrows raise in surprise. Banmal already? A second text pops onto the screen.

 _Sorry, I should’ve asked if it was okay  
_ _to speak informally, but we’re gonna  
_ _be roommates so I kinda went for it._

He can’t help the smile that tugs at his mouth then. He’s always heard that city folk are brash and impolite, but there’s something remarkably soft about the boyish way Juyeon texts him.

 _No worries. Just wanted to let you know  
_ _I’m on the train now. Should be there in  
_ _four hours or so._

Juyeon sends back a thumbs up. 

_Nice! How do you feel?_ Jaehyun’s new roommate asks. _Are you excited??_

Jaehyun picks at his bottom lip as he considers the answer before typing something out quickly lest he lose the nerve to say it.

_Kind of nervous actually, which is dumb_

Juyeon responds immediately — 

_Not at all. Don’t worry though! I’ll be here  
_ _to show you around. You can meet all my  
_ _friends too (if you want! No pressure!)  
_ _They’re all super nice!_

The text is riddled with far more exclamation points than Jaehyun has ever seen consecutively in his life, and it makes him huff out a disbelieving little chuckle. Still, something loosens in his chest, smoothed out by the ease of Juyeon’s warm affability, and he suddenly feels a little less on edge than he did ten minutes ago.

_Great. See you soon Juyeon-ah.  
  
_

* * *  
  


Seoul should be cooler than Uiseong-eup, being farther north as it is, but when Jaehyun steps off the train and into the open air station, he immediately breaks into a sweat. 

The city is stifling already, and he’s barely in it. He still has two other transfers before he gets remotely close to the apartment in Sinchon, but somehow, even on the outskirts of Seoul, the air feels heavier in his lungs. As far as cities go, it’s undoubtedly nicer than Uiseong-eup, but as Jaehyun eyes the sprawl of concrete from his vantage point in the station, he finds that Seoul has nothing on the fields he grew up seeing in Uiseong. 

Still, it’s thrilling to make his way through the train station, with everything gleaming clean and bright. It’s all touch screens and automation, and Jaehyun has to keep from gaping at every other thing.

The train itself is stuffy and packed with people going into the city for the weekend. Jaehyun tries to make himself as small as possible and eyes his fellow passengers. Absently, he wonders to himself, _Are people better looking in Seoul?_ He doesn’t have much energy to contemplate this captivating question, not when every fibre of his being is going into trying not to _breathe_ on another human with his train-breath. 

Jaehyun runs his tongue over his teeth and grimaces. He’ll have to brush them pronto when he finally gets to the flat. 

By the time he arrives in Sinchon, he’s covered in a slick sheen of sweat and his eyes almost smart from the technicolour signs and lights that layer one on top of the other all over the city. Seoul is vibrant and bustling, and he feels a jolt of reluctant energy pulse through him with every weary step he takes. 

The apartment building is remarkably easy to find with how well Naver Map works in the capital, and soon, Jaehyun is knocking nervously on the door to flat 12C. He hears footsteps padding quickly towards him, takes a fortifying breath and sends a quick prayer up to the good Lord that he isn’t about to be murdered.

The door opens and the first thing Jaehyun notices is—

_Jesus, those are white teeth. Does everyone in Seoul have such white teeth? Fucking—_

“Hi! I was just about to text you to see if you’d gotten lost, Jaehyun hyung,” rosy lips say, forming words around the brightest smile Jaehyun has ever seen. Jaehyun’s stare flickers up to meet the gaze of a young man with crescent shaped eyes and a mop of dark hair styled into a fashionable sweep off his handsome brow.

“Hi.” His hand lifts of its own volition to hover in the air. “Juyeon, right?”

The guy chuckles and pulls Jaehyun into the flat by his shoulder. The lack of immediate verbal confirmation alarms Jaehyun for the briefest of moments before he hears a happy ‘yep!’ by his ear, and he toes off his shoes accordingly. 

Jaehyun is about to respond when he is entirely distracted by the sight of the apartment.

It’s small - Jiwoo and Juyeon both had warned him it would be, what with rent prices in the city - but there’s something undeniably homey about it. The pictures he’d seen online had not done the place justice by any stretch.

The dark floorboards are worn but clean, and the open concept of a living room adjacent to a kitchen with mismatched barstools at an island makes the room feel bigger somehow. Sunlight streams through the large windows that Juyeon has hung long gauzy curtains from, and every other inch of the apartment is filled with plants and books. The furniture, old but clearly well-cared for, is delightfully curated - nothing makes a set, not the sofa and armchair, not the coffee and end tables - to feel like a home instead of a house.

Juyeon lets him look around in silence, and Jaehyun appreciates that he seems to understand Jaehyun’s need for a moment to soak it all in. 

Finally, when his eyes have traipsed through every corner of the flat, he turns back around. “It’s _really_ nice,” he says with emphasis. Juyeon grins bashfully and scratches his neck like a shy schoolboy.

“Ah- really? I’m glad, that’s- thanks.” 

They smile at each other, each bobbing their head - strange but not awkward - until Juyeon perks up. “Oh, you probably want to see your room!” 

He leads Jaehyun through the maze of furniture, past shelves and higgledy-piggledy piles of books in all shapes and colours, to one end of the flat. “Your room’s just here,” Juyeon says, pushing a door open. “The bathroom’s on my end, the second door on the left - see there? - but you don’t have to worry about waking me or anything if you need to use it late at night. I’m a pretty heavy sleeper.”

Jaehyun nods absently and walks in, his socked feet welcoming the feeling of air-conditioner chilled wooden floors.

The room is compact and overflowing with Jaehyun’s boxes. Like the living room, sunlight comes right through the one window in the centre wall and throws the entire space into brilliant clarity. 

“Look okay?” Juyeon asks behind him. “It probably seems kinda small with all the boxes, but once we get those packed away, it’ll feel a little bigger.”

Jaehyun’s roommate walks in and slides open a pale wooden cupboard door laid into the wall. “Storage space is pretty good here, I know my last roommate had way more stuff than you do and managed to fit it all in, but if you need it, I made space for you in the hallway closet too.”

Jaehyun nods and peeks inside. “Yeah this is… _way_ more space than I had in Uiseong. I had to share a room with my sister,” he admits with a scrunched nose, and Juyeon chuckles. Jaehyun throws his duffel bag down, groaning a little at the ache he feels in his shoulder. 

“Damn,” he mutters. “I need a shower, I feel gross.” 

Juyeon starts. “Oh! Yeah you probably want to get cleaned up after the train. If you don’t feel like looking through your boxes for a towel, I have an extra one you can borrow,” he offers pleasantly, and Jaehyun is immediately grateful for the hospitality. 

Five minutes later, Juyeon is closing the bathroom door behind him, and Jaehyun has an arm full of the softest terry towel he’s ever felt and a change of clothes. He stares blankly at the small wall-fixture of products he sees before him, marvelling at the fact that Juyeon uses two separate products for body wash and body exfoliation. 

_City folk,_ he thinks amusedly. 

The spray of the shower is warm and firm against his tired muscles, and Jaehyun lets loose a sigh of relief. As he works the shampoo into his hair - whatever ‘amber’ is, it smells pretty great - he wonders at the life he’s thrown himself into. 

A brief shiver of nervousness passes through him. From what little he’d seen of Seoul, it’s loud and packed, so filled to the brim with people and colour and sounds that Jaehyun’s brain half aches with the thought of facing all that stimuli every day. It’s terrifying and thrilling all at once, the longing in his gut for the endless green of Uiseong-gun juxtaposing sharply with the quiver of adrenaline in his veins. 

He sighs. 

Everything will be fine. It has to be! This is what he wanted — a new life, a chance at a dream he’d never given himself the time to pursue. It certainly helps that his roommate seems awfully nice. Jaehyun can be a city boy, right? 

He nods decisively, shampoo sluicing off his head in cascades, and scoops a judicious amount of exfoliator into his palm. 

  
* * *

  
When Jaehyun emerges from the bathroom, roughly towel-drying his dark hair, he walks into the living room to see Juyeon closing the front door after a delivery person. 

His new roommate turns to spot Jaehyun and grins. “Thought you might be hungry so I ordered some lunch for us,” he says, waving the bag in the air. “I wasn’t sure what you liked so I got a little of everything.”

Jaehyun watches, eyebrows raised in surprise at the kindness of the gesture, as Juyeon unpacks all manners of boxes from the large plastic bag. He happily lists off what he got, almost like a child participating in show-and-tell, and Jaehyun can’t help the bewildered smile that creeps onto his face. 

“I got fried chicken - spicy and marinated - with some banchan, bibim naengmyeon, a bunch of those little fried cheeseball things cause I figured you probably hadn’t tried them yet, a couple corndogs…” he trails off as he opens each takeaway box to arrange the food nicely on their kitchen island. 

Jaehyun deposits the towel on the bathroom door handle, coughs and approaches the counter slowly. “You didn’t have to do all this,” he murmurs, sounding equal parts confused and appreciative. Juyeon looks up and his eyes fold into dark half-moons. 

“Nah, your first meal in the city? This is the least I could do,” he replies easily. “C’mon, sit, sit, hyung, the food’ll get cold if we don’t eat it now. Well…except for the bibim naengmyeon, I guess.” He mumbles the last part under his breath, brow furrowed in thought, and Jaehyun finds the sight of a grown man contemplating if cold noodles can, in fact, get colder, bizarrely endearing. 

“Thanks Juyeon-ah.” Juyeon’s name on his lips sounds foreign, particularly in the suddenly casual form, but the syllables settle quickly against his palate. Besides, when he sees Juyeon’s pleased smile, Jaehyun figures it’s the least he can do.

The two of them dig in, and at first, Jaehyun is a little nervous about his table manners. What if things are different in Seoul? Are certain customs not universal from countryside to city?

Just then, he looks over to see Juyeon’s cheeks jammed full with food, and still, the young man lunges in for another bite. It makes Jaehyun’s mouth tug upwards, particularly when Juyeon pushes the carton of chicken towards him, chewing his face-full of food loudly. 

Jaehyun grins and grabs a drumstick as another kernel of tension gets chipped away. 

Juyeon swallows - with effort, clearly - and wipes his mouth. “How’s the job hunt going?” he asks interestedly. The two of them had spoken briefly over Kakao Talk about what Jaehyun’s plans in Seoul were, and Jaehyun had admitted to not having anything lined up in the city. 

Since then, however, he’d heard back from one particularly exciting posting for a sound engineer at a podcast network. The specific show he’d be working on is relatively small, but made by a famous music producer who he’s hoping he can impress enough to get a recommendation for a job at an actual record label.

“Good, I think? I have an interview at this podcast network for sound engineering,” Jaehyun says, trying not to let a bashful flush rise to his face. “It’s pretty junior ‘cause I don’t have much experience but I’m hoping it works out.”

Juyeon nudges him with his knee affably. “I’m sure it’ll be great! When is it?”

Unbidden, a small smile creeps onto Jaehyun’s face. “In a few days actually.” He pauses, feels a secret admission he’d been keeping in out of childish embarrassment swell up in his chest, then blurts out, “I was thinking of getting my hair dyed for it.”

It’s so stupid, Jaehyun laments, that his ears immediately burn red. There’s nothing actively embarrassing about caring about your appearance, he knows that - he does! - but perhaps it’s the small-county culture of Uiseong and the particular breed of nonchalant-masculinity that has always been held in such high regard that has him feeling utterly mortified. 

Seemingly impervious to Jaehyun’s internal crisis, Juyeon smiles broadly. “That’s a good idea,” he agrees between slurps of cold buckwheat noodles. “Actually my friend owns a chain of salons — he’ll definitely give you a discount if you go to one of his places. No pressure though! I don’t know if you already have somewhere picked out?”

“Oh!” Jaehyun looks at Juyeon surprisedly over his bowl. “You’d- I mean, he wouldn’t mind doing that for me?”

Juyeon waves him off with a serene hand and says, “‘Course, friends-and-family discount. I’ll text him now, do you know when you’ll be free?”

Before Jaehyun can blink, a phone is in Juyeon’s hands - and only then does he notice how large and veiny they are, almost appallingly so in the way they send masculine-posturing-alarm-bells ringing in his head - and his mouth falls open. “Uh, I guess- is tomorrow okay? Or any other day before…the day after tomorrow,” he trails off limply. 

Juyeon chuckles and glances up at him, as if to say _you’re funny_ — almost like he doesn’t know Jaehyun just made a stupid, awkward gaff, almost like he thinks Jaehyun was being funny _on purpose_. His phone buzzes with an immediate response.

“Nice, Chanhee said tomorrow at one. If you don’t have plans, there’s a good udon place nearby — we can go for lunch,” Juyeon says, reading off his phone and then making full-on eye contact with Jaehyun. His smile is warm but unassuming, but Jaehyun is surprised anyway. 

“Yeah, that sounds good,” he responds, tone far milder than the pleasant thrum in his chest. 

They settle into a comfortable sort of silence then, a quiet that is broken only by the sound of chewing and the occasional crunch of fried chicken. Little fragments of conversation - _Were your parents mad when you decided to move? What’d you get up to this weekend? Oh man, you play that game too? It’s so good._ \- smudge the otherwise tranquil environment of the room. There’s something exactly-just-right about it, a mixture of mutual understanding and lack of expectation, that has the knot of worry in Jaehyun’s chest loosening with each passing minute. 

When Juyeon starts clearing their boxes away, Jaehyun gets up to pat his pockets absently for his wallet only to realise he’d left it in his backpack. Before he can take off to go grab it, however, Juyeon waves him off from in front of the bin.

“Don’t worry about it, hyung,” he says casually. “We’re roommates, you can always get the next one.”

Jaehyun bites the inside of his cheek and looks at the person who he has formally (or, as formally as a Microsoft Word contract exchanged over Craigslist is) agreed to live with for the following year. Out of everything he’d expected from his roommate - from apathy to the tiny, inconceivable hope that they’d end up being friends - he’d never expected someone as quietly gracious and warm as the young man standing in front of him with grease-stained hands.

Juyeon nods his chin towards Jaehyun’s bedroom. “Want help unpacking or do you feel like being alone for a bit?”

Jaehyun’s lips twist reluctantly into a smile. “Think I need some time alone. I have to call my parents and sister anyway.” 

Juyeon smiles back with soapy hands under running water. “‘Course. Let me know if you end up needing help,” he says. 

Jaehyun bobs his head. “Yeah, definitely.”  
  


* * *  
  


It takes three rings of the dial-tone for Jiwoo to pick up, and when she does, she says, “Tell me you still have all your limbs.”

Jaehyun snorts and rolls his eyes as he props his socked feet up onto his bare mattress. “Shut up, noona.”

“That’s not an answer, Jaehyun-ah, blink twice if you need saving,” his sister responds loftily. 

“How would you hear me blink over the phone?” Jaehyun asks, just to be difficult.

“I’d find a way.” He hears her throwing herself onto the bed in the background of the phone call, and it takes barely any imagination to see her, barefoot and legs kicked up onto the wall behind her bed, in his mind’s eye.

“How is it there?” Jiwoo asks, and her voice is a little softer now — concerned. 

Jaehyun smiles and props his chin up, elbow on his knee. “It’s good, the place is really nice actually. Way nicer than it looked in the pictures,” he says. 

Jiwoo hums. “That’s good to hear,” she says. “Is your room small? How’s your roommate?”

“Not too bad, definitely enough for all of my stuff and probably a small desk if I decide I want one,” Jaehyun responds, looking around to mentally gauge the space. “My roommate is- he’s actually really nice. Way nicer than I thought he’d be.”

His sister exhales in relief. “Jeez, thank god, I was worried he’d be a fucking weirdo. What’s he like?”

Jaehyun bites his lip and leans back on his headboard. The mattress is scratchy under his exposed calves when he straightens his legs out, but he’s far too lazy to start unpacking right now. “He’s just…nice. Kinda quiet, but really, er- warm? I guess? Friendly, but not in a fake or overbearing way. I dunno, I feel like we could be friends — is that weird to say?”

Jiwoo chuckles, “No, that’s so good, I’m so glad. Is he- or, I mean, what does he do?”

Jaehyun shrugs and picks at a stray hangnail. _Ah crap, did I pack my nail clippers? Shit._ “I think he’s technically a PhD student at Yonsei University, but he ‘moonlights for a publishing house as an editor.’ His words, not mine,” Jaehyun quickly defends. 

“That’s nice,” Jiwoo responds idly. “He sounds so gentle,” she snickers. 

The laugh that bursts out of him then is inadvertent but genuine. “Yeah, he really is,” Jaehyun snickers. 

“Guess you’ll have to ease him into your charming personality then,” Jiwoo teases, cackling loudly when Jaehyun splutters in protest. “You’re _so_ fucking loud Jaehyunie, it’s unbearable. The poor kid’s gonna kick you out in a month.”

In a show of protest, Jaehyun hangs up on her and calls his parents instead.

(They are also pleased to hear that Juyeon sounds like a nice, studious boy, but Jaehyun can’t exactly hang up on them when they too wonder if he’ll be too loud for his new roommate.)  
  


* * *

  
At half past six, Jaehyun hears a quiet knock on his door. He’s sweaty again from all the moving, and deeply contemplating taking a second shower if it means his legs won’t make a slick sound as they rub against one another. 

“Come in,” he calls distractedly, as he steps onto another cardboard box to collapse it flat.

Juyeon’s head pokes in. “Hey hyung,” he greets. “I- woah, you got a lot done! It looks great in here,” he marvels as he lets himself in. Jaehyun, too focused and otherwise preoccupied the last four hours with actually unpacking to look at the room, slows down only to find it lacking. He doesn’t have enough stuff to make it seem homey, and the bare walls with his pale grey sheets look almost prison-like.

“It’s alright,” he says. “What’s up?” He softens the abruptness of his question with a smile, and Juyeon’s eyes crinkle back.

“I’m supposed to meet up with friends in an hour so I wanted to see if you wanted to meet them too. They can either come here if you’re down for it, or I can go to their place, your call.” Juyeon pauses, then adds after a beat, “I know you said you didn’t really know anyone in the city, but don’t feel obliged to or anything. I just wanted to throw the option out there.”

Jaehyun picks at his hangnail as he thinks. On the one hand, he’s violently tired and disgusting from a day of unpacking, but on the other, it’d be nice to start making friends in the city. It’s a toss up of epic proportions.

In the end, he decides he may as well start himself off on a good foot socially, so he smiles and says, “Sure, it’d be fun to have them over.” He sniffs indelicately at his underarms and frowns. “You’re gonna have to cede the bathroom to me though, I reek.”

Juyeon laughs brightly and takes a purposeful step out of the room. “You said it, not me,” he quips, and it's so natural for Jaehyun to pick up a lone slipper he’d unpacked from one of the boxes, its twin entirely untraceable, and chuck it at Juyeon’s retreating silhouette. 

It clips his shoulder with a limp splat before falling on the floor, and Juyeon’s laughter fills his bedroom entryway, then the hallway, and then the living room as he ambles out.  
  


* * *

  
An hour later, Jaehyun is nervously picking at his bottom lip as he sits, back ramrod straight, on the sofa. Juyeon had disappeared out the door just a few minutes ago to let his friends in, and Jaehyun can feel a light sheen of sweat gathering on his palms. 

Just then, the door bursts open and a veritable pile of bodies floods through the entryway. Alarmed, Jaehyun rubs his hands on his ratty sports shorts before standing up. 

“Hey!” Juyeon calls from behind the herd. Jaehyun’s roommate closes the door behind him and sets down what looks like three enormous takeout bags of food. “Guys this is Jaehyun-hyung,” he nudges the group who are all regarding Jaehyun with no small amount of curiosity. 

A young man with honey blonde hair walks forward and dips his head - the most casual version of a bow Jaehyun has ever seen - with an amicable smile. “Hey, I’m Jacob,” he says, gesturing to himself. The English name makes Jaehyun’s mouth fall open, and Jacob chuckles. “Ah, yeah, I grew up in Canada, with Kevin over there-” he points at the guy with a tiny half-up ponytail and little pieces of wispy hair framing his face, “-so we don’t use our Korean names much.”

Kevin waves from where he’s unpacking the food, and calls out a ‘hey dude!’. Beside him, with his arm slung around Kevin’s slender shoulders, a delicate face smiles genially at Jaehyun. “I’m Chanhee, it’s nice to meet you,” he greets with a mini-bow much like Jacob’s. 

Jaehyun, who had been prepared to bow in full to all of them, doesn’t quite know what to do except jerk his head awkwardly in kind. His eyes flicker briefly over to Juyeon who is folding up the plastic bags into neat squares, and his roommate smiles encouragingly at him. 

“Chanhee’s the one with the hair salons,” he says, touching the other man on the elbow. Chanhee smiles and wanders over to Jaehyun, and, for the first time, Jaehyun notices that the other man is wearing a pale blue cropped cardigan over impossibly tight jeans — a positively shocking sight if he’s being honest. Before his brain can process that thought, however, cold fingers are suddenly and abruptly in his _hair_.

It takes every fibre of Jaehyun’s being not to reel back in surprise, and even then, his alarmed gaze darts to Juyeon who himself is looking equal parts concerned and amused.

“You have a good face for different cuts,” Chanhee says critically, dragging his hands through Jaehyun’s hair. “You’re kind of pale so lightening your hair might be nice. Do you know what you want?” 

Jaehyun almost wilts under Chanhee’s intense stare, but luckily Jacob sidles up behind him and slings an arm around the slender man’s waist. 

“Chanhee-ya, what did we say about shoving your hands in strangers’ hair?” Jacob says amusedly into Chanhee’s shoulder. “Sorry about him,” he apologises to Jaehyun directly when Chanhee’s hands fall away and onto Jacob’s shoulder. 

Jaehyun swallows and shakes his head as casually as he can. “No worries!” His voice comes out a little pitchy, but it’s reasonably steady volume-wise and for that he’s grateful.

“Juyeon was telling us about your sound engineering interview — is it mostly music stuff you’re interested in?” Jacob asks as he sits on the sofa and pulls Chanhee down with him. When Jaehyun doesn’t immediately move, the blonde man pats the empty space beside them with an inviting smile.

Jaehyun sits, suddenly too aware of his arms and legs in the face of these city boys whose limbs seem to get more tangled with each passing second. “Music definitely, but I wouldn’t mind working on audio effects for a film or video game or something,” he says, folding his hands in front of him. 

“That’s cool,” Jacob responds pleasantly. “I lead the after school choir where Kevin and I teach. Not quite the same, but.” He shrugs self-deprecatingly, and Jaehyun smiles in response. He’s about to ask more when Juyeon comes trudging over with trays of food balanced in his arms.

“Sangyeon hyung - he actually lives right down the street from us - was supposed to come too, but he got called away on a last-minute gig so it’ll just be us,” Juyeon says to him, and the others barring Jaehyun nod in understanding. 

“You guys couldn’t’ve helped?” Kevin complains, coming after him with his hands equally occupied. Jacob bounces up to grab a plate of noodles that looks particularly precarious.

“Sorry, babe,” he says, and Kevin huffs fondly at him the way Jaehyun has heard his mother huffing at his father for the last twenty five years of his life. For a wild moment, Jaehyun stares at them, wondering what it all means. The endearment, the constant touching, the non-existent boundaries of physical and emotional contact, all of it is so intensely baffling to Jaehyun that for a second, it feels like he’s on the brink of floundering under an ocean of something unnameable. 

Before he sinks, however, he feels someone tapping his ankle with their foot. Jaehyun jumps instinctively to the side and sees Juyeon standing there with a soft expression, and Jaehyun shuffles a little farther to make space for him to sit. When he does, their thighs don’t quite touch but they’re somehow close enough that Jaehyun can feel Juyeon’s phantom warmth through the thin fabric of his shorts, and he finds that there’s something steady about that, about the presence - the not-quite-touch - that anchors him.

“Have some rice, hyung.” A plate is pushed into his hands, and Juyeon doesn’t make eye contact but there’s a gentle sympathy clinging to the edges of his eyelashes that Jaehyun can barely make out.

So he does. He takes one bite, then the next, and the next, and somewhere along the lines, perhaps between his seventh bite of noodles and tenth bite of bulgogi beef, the tension ebbs out of his body and he stops feeling so lost.

It helps that he and Jacob can talk about teaching teenagers, that Kevin’s humour is startlingly similar to Jiwoo’s and that Chanhee comes from Daegu, which isn’t the same as Uiseong-gun at all but at least it’s in the same province and that makes Jaehyun feel less out of place. 

And through it all, though he doesn’t say much more beyond humming interestedly when someone else speaks or asking an odd question here or there, Juyeon stays beside Jaehyun, quiet and implacable, and not quite touching. By the end of the night, Jaehyun finds that Seoul begins to feel a little less terrifying. A little less lonely, even.

  
* * *

  
Jaehyun can’t stop fiddling. It’s embarrassing, being a grown man on the damn subway who can’t stop running his hands through his hair every half minute, but this is who he is now, he guesses. He’s almost certain the little ahjussi in the corner seat is eyeing him disdainfully. 

_Kids these days,_ his disgruntled expression seems to say. _So vain_.

 _It’s not vanity!_ Jaehyun wants to yell back, but doesn’t because the little old man didn’t even _say_ anything to him and Jaehyun is absolutely, one hundred percent losing it. It’s just that his hair - always black, sometimes dark umber under the summer sun - is now a tawny brown with “penny highlights”, as his stylist had called them, and Jaehyun feels simultaneously giddy with excitement and petrified with fear.

The whole ordeal had unfolded in the span of a few hours. He had woken up that morning, remarkably late with a back aching from a day of moving boxes, and stumbled out into the living room with his basketball shorts, their stretched-out elastic slung low over his hips.

He hadn’t expected to see Juyeon sprawled out with his limbs all over their sofa, sipping on an iced coffee with a metal straw and a comically small paperback in his comically large hand. 

“Hyung,” Juyeon greets amicably around the straw. “How did you sleep? Was the air conditioner too—”

Jaehyun shushes him with a finger in the air and a hand over his own eyes. “ _Shh,_ ” he demands like a philharmonic conductor. “Too loud too early, Juyeon-ah.”

He hears what sounds like a barely-concealed chuckle before he deigns to uncover his eyes once more, and finds Juyeon rising from the sofa. His roommate looks sleep-soft - blurred around the edges with his dark hair flopping over his forehead and a crease on his cheek from a sofa pillow - but far more awake than Jaehyun could ever aspire to be on a Sunday morning.

“Do you want coffee or tea, hyung?” Juyeon stage-whispers with no small amount of amusement in his voice. 

Jaehyun hauls himself into one of the barstools - the red one right on the edge of the kitchen counter, the one he’s secretly decided is going to be _his_ \- and mumbles, “Coffee. Please.”

Neither of them speak for the next minute as the kettle comes to a boil, rumbling happily in their small kitchen-slash-dining-slash-living room. Then, another stage whisper — “Hot or co—”

“Cold, Juyeon-ah.” Jaehyun cuts in. He cracks one eye open and quirks his mouth. “Coffee always cold, tea always hot.” It’s a mongrel of a sentence, but Juyeon smiles anyway from behind the steam of hot water. 

A minute and much ice-tray cracking later, Juyeon pushes a glass of French-pressed coffee poured over ice under Jaehyun’s nose. He mumbles out a thanks and begins to sip with a relieved exhale through his nose. Maybe it’s dramatic to say, but he can almost feel the caffeine coursing through his veins. In the silence, suddenly —

“Did you even brush your teeth?” 

Jaehyun makes a face at Juyeon, the effect of which he’s certain is dampened by the straw in his mouth. 

“No way, before breakfast?” he deadpans. 

Juyeon’s eyes go ridiculously wide. “You’re kidding. What? You brush your teeth after breakfast?” His tone sounds almost accusatory, and Jaehyun is immediately defensive.

“ _Yes_ I brush my teeth after breakfast — what do you do? Walk around Seoul with kimchi breath?” He points a patronising finger. 

“Better than swallowing all my mouth germs from the night before!”

“Mouth- what the hell are _mouth germs?_ ”

Juyeon flails his arms, and they’re so long and encased in so much grey jersey that Jaehyun’s scared for a moment that his roommate will take one of his eyes out by accident. 

“You know!” Juyeon exclaims. “Plaque! Bacteria! Whatever it is that makes your breath smell bad!”

The combination of his insistence and the fact that his cowlick wags threateningly on top of his head as he gesticulates is ultimately what breaks Jaehyun. It’s way too early for it, for this decibel of noise, but he descends helplessly into peals of loud laughter, a horrible hybrid between a cackle and a shriek that he tries to muffle with his hands. Juyeon looks very alarmed for all of one second before he too breaks.

They laugh for too long than is apt for a situation such as theirs, but by the time it fizzles out, Jaehyun feels like the sunshine that has been steadily cascading in through the windows has warmed him all over.

Now that he’s caffeinated, he can appreciate the way early June spills into the apartment. Everything is glazed in gold, perfectly lacquered in summer. It isn’t quite the shards of light that Jaehyun saw yesterday at noon, but instead the sticky marmalade of a season redolent with endless daylight and treacly evenings. All at once, he feels entirely at ease.

“So, food?” Juyeon interrupts his thoughts, eyes bright. “Are you still okay with that udon place?” When Jaehyun nods, Juyeon grins and takes a last, noisy slurp of his coffee before putting the glass in the sink. “If we leave in thirty, we can walk to the restaurant and I can show you some spots on the way.”

And they do just that.

On the way down, Juyeon tells him their lift goes extra slow in the mornings so leaving a two minute buffer is key. Down the street outside their building, he points out the cafe he likes to go to that apparently used to be sort of bad but has since begun roasting beans locally (something Juyeon enthuses about with a surprising amount of gusto). Five blocks away from their flat, Jaehyun’s gaze is directed to a grocery store boasting _organic produce that supports local farmers!_ and he snickers a little to himself because that seems to be important to Juyeon even though Jaehyun himself had never thought twice about the vegetables grown in his grandparents’ gardens.

Like this, the neighbourhood unfolds before his eyes, and with the brush of Juyeon’s presence beside him, what looked like an abundance of stimuli yesterday mellows out into the pleasant pulse of a city teeming with life today. Jaehyun smiles as new excitement bubbles over in him and energy crackles at the fibres of his being.

Over udon, Juyeon tells Jaehyun about his life. The young man is at turns quiet and thoughtful, with measured words that feel purposeful in the way they take shape in Juyeon’s soup-reddened mouth (“I think…the intersection between gastronomy and ethnic culture is so powerful, and sometimes…sometimes it seems like people forget that when they mindlessly appropriate different cuisines.”) 

At other times, he’s excited and boisterous, like when he talks about his anthropological research into the evolution of German political writing (“It’s just so fascinating, hyung, how these dusty paperbacks written by people a long time ago and thousands of miles away from us still have so much _relevance!_ ”) or their neighbour’s new cat who he sees occasionally in the hallways (“I really think a sincere and genuine intimacy is developing between us- why are you laughing at me?”).

There’s an unfathomable sense of familiarity there, like the two of them were friends many lifetimes ago. That thought - fanciful and absurd - makes Jaehyun want to roll his eyes at himself even as Juyeon’s warm voice washes over him.

Really, it’s not until he’s finished his udon that Jaehyun realises with a start that though he’d begun the meal prepared and happy to listen to Juyeon talk about himself, somehow their lunch had ended with Jaehyun telling Juyeon about his relationship with his sister and deep-rooted desire to make his parents proud.

When it finally occurs to him just how dexterously Juyeon had weaved the conversation, Jaehyun blinks. 

“Wait- you- how did we get to this?” he sputters as the waiter clears away their bowls. 

Juyeon looks back at him with surprise. “What do you mean?” 

“This!” Jaehyun exclaims, gesturing between them. “How did it go from you telling me about your research to- to this! Me! Baring my soul over udon?” He laughs incredulously, and Juyeon chuckles too although he still looks vaguely confused.

“I dunno,” he shrugs, brilliant and guileless all at once. “C’mon, we gotta go. Chanhee’s places don’t do late show-ups.”

He throws money down as if Jaehyun isn’t the older of the two, as if a harried protest isn’t tripping its way over Jaehyun’s tongue, and instead, frog-marches him out of the restaurant. By the time they get to Chanhee’s salon, the conversation has seamlessly turned once more to Jaehyun’s opinions on movie soundtracks nowadays — _too manufactured, lacking entirely in skill and relying mostly on cliched key changes,_ he argues passionately.

At the door - an artfully worn wood with glass panelling - Juyeon stops and spins around. “I’ll see you back at the apartment?” 

Jaehyun’s mouth falls open in surprise, and he almost asks where Juyeon is going before he realises how absurd it would be to expect a grown man, his roommate no less, to sit with him while he gets his haircut like a _child._

Almost as if he’d heard the silent question but with enough tact not to acknowledge it, Juyeon says, “I’d stay but I have to run to campus actually. I forgot my photocopy of this text I wanted to read tonight and- well, no one’s exactly uploading obscure 17th century German political texts in Korean on the internet.”

His wry smile makes Jaehyun grin, and he nudges his chin to the road. “Yeah, cool, go on then. I’ll see you later.”

Juyeon raises his hand in the air in a half-wave and waits till Jaehyun does it back before bounding off down the street. His eighty-percent-of-his-height legs take him quickly past the incoming traffic, and Jaehyun watches him go for a moment before stepping inside.

Three hours and a whole tonne of ammonia later, Jaehyun emerges from the salon with a considerably lighter coloured head of hair. He had nodded numbly when the hairdresser had spun him around to see his reflection, and now is somehow balancing the desperate urge to check his hair in every mirrored surface he sees while revolting at the idea of being caught doing so as he heads home. 

Jaehyun could walk home, he knows, but something about the anxiety of a new colour - a new _appearance_ \- makes him want to scarper back sharpish. He doesn’t even take the time to admire the glossy surfaces of the metro station before he’s swiping his card and stumbling into the subway car, pressing his body close against all the other people out for the weekend.

By the time he gets back to Sinchon, footsteps quickening with every familiar landmark until he’s right in front of their building, and then the lift door, and then their front door, Jaehyun is almost breathless. He quickly taps the code into the keypad, bizarrely jittery - he just needs to get in front of a mirror to _process,_ damn it - when—

“Hey,” Juyeon smiles from the kitchen counter where he’s slicing up a mango. “You look great! Mango?”

Jaehyun stares at the proffered forkful of fruit and the buzz in his skull immediately quietens into downy silence. Just like that. Three words of assurance and the offer of some fruit. He takes it and pops it in his mouth, flavour saturating his tongue immediately — exactly ripe. 

“Thanks,” he returns with his own small smile. Juyeon grins happily back at him, and the afternoon sun glints off of the glossy leaves of Juyeon’s African Fig plant in its terracotta clay pot in Jaehyun’s periphery. If he focuses, he can see tiny particles of dust dancing gently through the air against the honey-soaked room, white and ephemeral, seemingly entirely impervious to chaos and the fundamental laws of entropy.

_Simple._

(A day later, Jaehyun goes to his interview at the broadcasting company. The interviewer is polite and friendly, asks all the questions Jaehyun had prepared to answer and everything goes very, very well. At the end of the half hour, he leans forward and says quietly, “Sorry, I know this is totally unprofessional but could I- where do you get your hair cut? I’ve been trying to get my barber to- sorry, I know this is—” and Jaehyun tells him where with a magnanimous smile.

By that evening, he’s received an email that says _Congratulations! You start at 9 on Monday!_ and he and Juyeon cheers pieces of tteokbokki while Seoul winks its lights through their open windows.)

 _Why the panic?_ Jaehyun wonders. Everything seems so very simple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I know it started slow today but I do hope you stick around for the rest of the work. As always, your comments and kudos mean the world to me.
> 
> If you catch any spelling or grammatical errors, please let me know! 
> 
> The next update will be on Thursday, 4th of March KST.
> 
> If you want to chat or get updates on my work, come find me on Twitter (link in profile)!
> 
> \- Anon


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s quiet around them. The only thing keeping Jaehyun tethered is the warmth of Juyeon’s hand underneath his - large and bronze like he’d held the sun in his palms once - and the way Juyeon’s eyes crinkle and shine as he beams back at Jaehyun.
> 
> Then—
> 
> “And they were _roommates!”_ Kevin fake dry sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Welcome back to chapter two! 
> 
> Trigger warnings for this chapter:
> 
> * Jaehyun accidentally misgenders Sangyeon behind his back but Juyeon corrects him and explains Sangyeon's pronouns.
> 
> * Jaehyun's parents have age and upbringing-typical perceptions of heteronormativity as well as internalised homophobia. There is no explicit use of slurs and their behaviour largely stems from ignorance but please be aware.
> 
> I'm aware that the Korean language generally has an absence of gendered pronouns but for the purposes of this fic and for clarity, I referenced gendered pronouns! Also, the rest of the chapters in this fic will be closer to this length. Other than that, enjoy!

Monday morning comes, bright but slightly overcast. Jaehyun wakes up at exactly 7:30 AM to the sound of his reasonably quiet but insistent alarm and stares up at the ceiling for precisely one and a half minute.

When he stumbles out of bed and into the bathroom, he notices that Juyeon’s bedroom door is open, his bed already made. The windows are cracked so that some of the air from outside - late summer and somehow the scent of ripe fruit - seeps into the flat and drifts across the room to Jaehyun.

Too tired to process the fact that his roommate is apparently already up, Jaehyun traipses into the bathroom and starts to get ready for the day. It takes a fifteen minute morning routine - ten minute shower, five minutes on hair drying and teeth brushing - for him to emerge in his ratty towel brought all the way from Uiseong.

He’s glad, then, that he’d already laid his clothes out the night before. The button up and slacks might be overkill for a podcasting network, he thinks critically as he surveys his appearance in the mirror, but better to be overdressed than underdressed on his first day.

When he finally does emerge from his bedroom the second time, ready and far more awake than he was the first, he peeks into the living room curiously to see if Juyeon is there. He’s not, and a little part of Jaehyun is just a fraction disappointed that he won’t have anyone there to wish him good luck.

It’s only when he’s pulling out his dosirak from the fridge, pre-prepared with Juyeon’s help - who, by the way, is an irritatingly good cook - that he sees it.

It being the sticky note on top of his aluminium lunch box that says, in Juyeon’s slanted scrawl, “Had to emergency TA a morning class for a friend. Good luck on your first day! Lee Jaehyun fighting!”

A grin, bright and luminous, erupts on his face then and Jaehyun fights to keep it off. He gives up not a moment later and settles instead for stuffing his lunchbox in his messenger bag before doing the three-step pat to check for phone, wallet and keys.

He leaves the house with the smile still on his face.  
  


* * *  
  


The podcast network’s office is very new and very high tech. It’s housed in the same building as one of the big Seoul entertainment companies’ headquarters, along with a series of other subsidiaries, and Jaehyun feels very, very small when he walks through the thumbprint powered security gates.

Once again, as he’s led by the building receptionist to the lift operator to the receptionist at the network’s office, he’s struck by the thought that people in Seoul really must be better looking because _how_ is it possible that every person in the building _looks the way they do?_

Every person they pass has perfect teeth, perfect smiles, perfect skin — and Jaehyun’s never felt anything lacking in his own appearance, particularly not since he got his hair “lifted from that dreadfully limp black” (Chanhee’s words, weirdly insulting but also eliciting the desire to agree), but today he feels meagre. Small-town. An imposter.

By the time HR has set him up with all of his documents, gotten his bank details for monthly payments and led him to the studio where he’ll work, Jaehyun has had to summon every ounce of self-confidence he’s built up over twenty five years in an iron fist so as to not shrink back from his new colleagues.

The star of the show, quietly powerful and notoriously gruff Man Youngho, is polite and sharp-eyed when he and Jaehyun are introduced. Jaehyun bows quickly, and raises his head only to see Youngho watching him with a quizzical gaze.

“Not from here?” he asks. His voice is cultured and smooth in the otherwise silent private office. Jaehyun and the HR rep hover awkwardly by the door, and Jaehyun feels cowed by the number of awards and trophies lining the ivory walls of Youngho’s office. The feverish desire to impress prickles at his nerves.

Jaehyun shakes his head. “No, I’m from Uiseong-eup, Man PD-nim,” he says quietly. He’s almost embarrassed to admit it.

To his surprise, Youngho’s phlegmatic face breaks into a small smile. “Good,” he nods. “I’m from Suncheon-si. I find us country boys tend to work a little harder than everyone else, hm?” His accent suddenly loses its perfect crispness, turning instead into something textured with history and culture.

The appearance of his satoori makes Jaehyun smile as well. “Yes, PD-nim,” he agrees, eyes crinkling. “I think so too.”

The HR rep cuts the conversation short then, and Jaehyun is led back out. Through winding corridors and past endless recording studios outfitted with equipment Jaehyun has only ever seen on TVs and the internet, his new colleague explains what his schedule will loosely look like every day.

“Things are pretty flexible here,” she says. “All we ask is that you get to work by 8:30 AM - Man PD-nim is a morning person - so you’ll want to set yourself up ready to go by the time he gets to work at nine. Mornings are dedicated to prep — Mondays and Fridays featured artist scouting, Tuesdays and Thursdays recording, Wednesday episode release. All afternoons are for either script writing on prep days or editing on recording days, and Friday is always a live show. You got all that?”

Jaehyun’s head spins but he nods anyway.

“You’ll be working with PD-nim’s select team, but the person you’ll be with for the most part is the other audio engineer. He’s been at the network for a couple years now so he’ll be able to show you the ropes,” she says before pushing the door to a room labelled Recording Studio A open.

“Jaehyun-ssi, this is—”

“Kim Sunwoo?” Jaehyun utters disbelievingly. The young man who had just spun around in his chair with a friendly but vacant smile on his face suddenly brightens.

“Jaehyun hyung?” he cries. “What are you doing here? It’s been so long- are you the new- wow, small world!” The series of half sentences is so youthfully endearing, so Sunwoo, that Jaehyun can’t help the wide grin that stretches across his mouth.

“Insane,” he laughs. “I didn’t know you came out here. How long have you been in Seoul?”

The HR rep is looking between them, eyes darting back and forth like she’s watching a boring but involved game of ping pong. She interrupts mildly, “I do actually have some more employees to on-board, so if you can show Jaehyun-ssi around, Sunwoo-ssi, that would be great.” Sunwoo nods and he and Jaehyun bow quickly to her before Sunwoo is shoving them both into the rolling desk chairs.

“I can’t believe it’s you, it’s been what — seven, eight years since we last saw each other?” Jaehyun asks excitedly.

Sunwoo laughs and cards a hand through his hair - now a rusty orange sort of colour instead of the black he’d sported all throughout high school - before squeezing his own face between two slender hands. “Yeah, holy shit. I- wow, I never thought I’d see you of all people walk through the door,” he says incredulously. “Did you just move to the city?”

Jaehyun nods, leaning forward. “Got here a few days ago, I’m in Sinchon. When did you move up North?”

Sunwoo grins, and Jaehyun is promptly struck by the memory of Sunwoo in his school uniform grinning up at him by the local convenience store in a bid to wheedle some crisps out of his hyung. “I got into Hanyang on scholarship so I came out after high school. I’ve been here ever since,” he says. “I think I’m just hitting my two year anniversary at the network in a month or so. Hey, how’s your family? And Jiwoo noona?”

“Good, good, my dad retired so he and my mother are navigating being around each other _all_ the time,” he chuckles, and Sunwoo does too. “Noona’s good too, she came back to Uiseong-eup a year ago but she’ll probably be back here by next autumn. I think she liked Seoul more than she realised,” Jaehyun adds fondly.

Sunwoo’s eyes are bright and attentive as he listens, but his mouth falls open at the news of Jiwoo’s potential return. “Oh, she- Jiwoo noona might come _back_ to Seoul? I didn’t know she was here in the first place, damn. Guess you’ll have to set us up when she gets back.” He leers a little suggestively, eyebrows waggling in a wholly boyish way.

“Kim Sunwoo.” Jaehyun’s voice is flat when he interjects, and he sends Sunwoo the _most_ unamused look. “She’s, like, almost half a decade older than you, dude.”

Sunwoo smiles slyly. “Hey, maybe she wants a younger man who can—”

“Shut _up_ ,” Jaehyun groans before burying his face in his hands. “I forgot about your stupid crush on her, oh my _god_.”

The sound of the wheeled chair rolling across floorboards echoes before Jaehyun feels an arm being thrown over his shoulder. “It’s okay, you can update me on what noona’s been up to over lunch,” Sunwoo teases rakishly.

Between his fingers, Jaehyun glares at his old friend. “You’re paying,” he points out, and Sunwoo pouts nauseatingly.

“What?” he whines. “You’re older, you should pay.”

“Yah!” Jaehyun exclaims. “It’s literally my first day on the job, you should treat _me!_ ”

As they descend into their age-old squabble - Jaehyun doesn’t _mind_ paying per se, but between the two of them, they eat an army’s serving of food and he really doesn’t want to dip into his savings - he finds himself very grateful for the fact that the recording studios are all sound-proofed to the maximum.  
  


* * *  
  


_Colleagues are taking me out for dinner and drinks,_ he texts Juyeon hours later. _Want me to grab anything for you on the way home?_

When he doesn’t get a response immediately, Jaehyun switches the ringer on and pockets his phone. It’s not until it’s almost ten, and Jaehyun is unlocking the front door that he discovers why.

When Jaehyun opens the door, Juyeon sitting on the sofa staring straight ahead with his eyes fixed on a point somewhere above the TV while the windows let a sticky summer breeze in through their open crack. He doesn’t look up when Jaehyun opens the door, and concern washes over Jaehyun immediately.

“Juyeon?” he asks uncertainly.

Juyeon looks over, startled. “Oh! Sorry I didn’t hear you come in. How was work?” he asks kindly, but Jaehyun can tell his heart isn’t quite in the question.

“Good, good,” he replies, setting his messenger bag down on a barstool. “What did you have for dinner?”

Juyeon’s eyebrows fly up and he lunges for his phone on the coffee table in front of him. “Dinner? It’s time for- oh. Huh.” He makes an apologetic face. “I missed your text.”

Jaehyun chuckles, concerned and amused by Juyeon’s bewildered expression. “Uh yeah, it’s 10 PM, Juyeon-ah,” he says as he rolls the sleeves of his button up to his elbows. He walks over with his leftover box of katsudon and sets it on the coffee table before sitting.

“You alright?”

Juyeon shrugs. “Are any of us really ever alright?” When he sees Jaehyun’s look of prompt and immediate panic he laughs. “Sorry, sorry! I was being emo, ignore me.”

Jaehyun arches a brow so Juyeon sighs and relents. “I dunno. You know how—”

It’s then that his stomach grumbles, appallingly loud.

“You should probably feed that,” Jaehyun says blandly, gesturing at Juyeon’s Judas. He nudges his katsudon over the coffee table and smiles. “Here, the place we went to was really good.”

“Oh no I couldn’t- hyung, that’s so nice but I’m really okay—”

“It’s katsudon.”

Juyeon’s face scrunches up, hilariously pained. “Katsudon?”

Jaehyun remembers how Juyeon had declared with a mouth full of udon the day of his haircut that although udon was excellent, katsudon was his favourite Japanese dish, and then proceeded to tell Jaehyun a brief but fascinating history of deep-frying in Japanese cuisine.

Now, Jaehyun wriggles his advantage and pushes the takeout box ever-closer to Juyeon.

“It’s still hot I bet, and the omelette was so good, Juyeon-ah, you know those soft curds you said you like? Yeah, it had those, and the panko was so crispy—”

“Fine, fine!” Juyeon squawks in interruption. “You don’t have to strong-arm me into eating your leftovers.” He pulls the box out of the bag and pops the lid open while Jaehyun bounds over to the kitchen to grab him some chopsticks. “Thank you, I really appreciate this,” Juyeon says earnestly, eyes shining over the steam of pork cutlet and rice.

Jaehyun rolls his eyes. “Stop that. What were you so preoccupied with anyway?”

He waits for Juyeon to chew and swallow, waits for the words that look like they are slowly taking form in his mouth while he goes through the motions of eating.

Finally, Juyeon says, “I uh…I have a thing where I kinda think? A lot. About everything. And sometimes it’s good, like when I have to write a research paper or come up with a thesis topic, but sometimes it spirals. …yeah. And then when it spirals I have to remember to pull myself back, but that doesn’t always happen right away, which is why sometimes I miss dinner. Or lunch. Or, like, showers n’ stuff.”

Jaehyun listens with rapt attention, then nods slowly. “Gotcha. So…what were you thinking about just now?”

Juyeon blinks at him, cheeks stuffed adorably full with food like a woodland creature.

“It’s dumb.”

Jaehyun frowns and recoils. “What? No it’s not. Just tell me — if you want, that is.”

Juyeon exhales, long and steady, before balancing the takeout box on his knees and leaning back in the sofa. When he speaks again, his voice is soft as it drifts and wafts through the syllables.

“It started off as nothing, literally just contemplating the wall colour. Cream, right? And cream is like ivory which is like white, and then I started thinking about how white is the sum total of all colours because white light comprises every colour whereas black is the absence of colour because it’s the absence of light, but did you know that there is almost no such thing as true black and true white?”

He pauses here, eyes still gazing ahead into some unnameable distance that Jaehyun can’t reach, but Jaehyun shakes his head no anyway.

Juyeon continues, talking with his hands as he goes. “Well there isn’t — the only real instances of true white and true black are unfiltered sunlight and black holes, but it got me thinking: if not even colours, one of the very bases of the physical world, are necessarily true or universal, then what is?”

He turns to look at Jaehyun then, and Jaehyun suddenly feels like he’s been fixed with the gaze of someone far older and wiser than he.

“What if there are no such things as truths and untruths, and if I learn to be okay with that, if I learn to accept that nothing is universal, even scientific principles because the Greeks thought the atom was the smallest structure and then 1909 came along and they found protons and neutrons, and they thought that must be it right, that’s the smallest thing? Except it wasn’t, because then they decided upon quarks in 1964, a whole half a century later, and I guess what I’m _really_ saying is — if there are no universal truths, then what do we really _know? What does it mean to know and exist?_ ”

By the end of his speech, Juyeon’s breath is laboured, like his lungs had contracted so that every possible molecule of air would be used in service of his monologue and then are suddenly expanding once more so that new oxygen flows through his veins.

They stare at each other like that for a while, each unblinking - Jaehyun because he’s rooted to the spot and Juyeon because there’s a film over his eyes as he gazes past Jaehyun’s physical form and, it seems, into the very depth of his make up to see all the atoms and protons and quarks he’d talked about - until Juyeon’s eyelids flutter.

The fog clears and a sheepish smile stretches across his face.

“Stuff like that,” he says ruefully, before taking another bite of rice.

Jaehyun rubs at his mouth as he nods slowly. “Right,” he agrees. “Stuff like that.” He’s still processing when Juyeon pipes up embarrassedly.

“I- sorry, I think that was a lot. Right? That was a lot, and we barely know each other. I’m sorry I just offloaded my existential crisis on you,” he says, sounding genuinely contrite.

Jaehyun is so startled that he bursts out with a, “No!” that makes Juyeon reel back in surprise. Quieter this time, Jaehyun reaffirms, “ _No_ , that wasn’t a lot. Thank you for- I mean, thanks for wanting to tell me that stuff. I’ve never thought about things like that before and it was…interesting. And if you ever need someone to pull you out of it, I can- I mean, I’ll be here. Cause I live here. Too.”

His sentences peter off into stilted discomfort, unsure how to navigate these unchartered waters. It’s not that emotions are necessarily foreign to him, but this certainly isn’t the kind of conversation he’d have with his friends from back home, in broad daylight (lamplight?) no less. This sort of thing was relegated to the little neat boxes Jaehyun kept in his head, so procedural had compartmentalisation become that he barely even noticed that he did it sometimes.

The only time he’d ever really talked things through was with Jiwoo, who insisted it was “primitive toxic masculinity” to think men couldn't have feelings. She’d sit him down in their little bedroom and nudge him with her toe and poke and prod him until he relented in a heaping, messy mass of emotion.

Anyway.

Juyeon smiles and scrunches his body up in response to Jaehyun’s awkward attempt at camaraderie, not to get away it seems but almost the way a cat does when it’s found a particularly comfortable spot to settle down in.

“Thank you,” he says genuinely. “I promise you won’t- or, I promise I’ll try not to need you to do that too much.”

They share a grin, something tentative but warm nonetheless, like the beginning fissures in a chrysalis at the break of spring.

Juyeon leans back on the sofa and tilts his head to face Jaehyun, softer and gentler as the tension bleeds out of his frame.

“So tell me about your first day,” he says.

And Jaehyun does, deep into the night, far later than any normal Monday should go.  
  


* * *  
  


**Lee Juyeon**

_Hyung!!!_

_How are you?_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Juyeonie_

_Good haha how are you_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Great! That’s so good_

_I’m good too_

_I’m running to the store_

_Do you need anything?_

_Sorry for interrupting youat work :)_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_I forgot to pack nail clippers  
_ _if you don’t mind getting  
_ _those for me. Other than  
_ _that though I’m good!  
  
No worries about the  
_ _interruption but Juyeon,  
_ _consolidate your texts please  
_ _haha my phone just buzzed  
_ _six times consecutively and  
_ _everyone is staring_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Whoops sorry hyung!! One  
_ _pair of nail clippers coming  
_ _your way! Flat top? Curved?  
_ _Stainless steel?_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_I will place my trust in your  
_ _undoubtedly infallible  
_ _judgement on consequential  
_ _issues such as these. Aka I  
_ _will actually and literally take  
_ _whatever is in store and  
_ _have very little interest in  
_ _the variance b/w nail clippers_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Noted!_

_(Note to self: Jaehyun hyung  
_ _is prickly on Thurs mornings.  
_ _Do not provoke at any cost  
_ _lest you are on the receiving  
_ _end of his very dry but ofc  
_ _endlessly funny wit!)_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_/Goodbye Juyeon/_

**_Lee Juyeon_ **

_Tschüssi!_

_(That’s goodbye in German)_

_(Dw I’ll crash course you  
_ _when you get home!!!!)  
_

* * *  
  


“Juyeon-ah!” Jaehyun calls.

Like a burrowing marsupial, Juyeon’s head pops up from amidst a pile of cushions and books on the living room floor. Jaehyun has learned he does that sometimes — declares he needs a _change of scenery, hyung!_ and then proceeds to lay waste to their carefully tidied sofa and drag every passably soft object onto the floor where he’ll lay with his reading for the next twelve hours.

“What’s up?”

Jaehyun waggles the milk carton as he leans on the open fridge door. “I think we’re low on milk, did you happen to grab any when you were at the store yesterday?”

Juyeon’s mouth falls open into a perfect ‘o’ before he scrambles up into a sitting position. “Ah I didn’t, I’m sorry! I don’t actually drink milk,” he admits sheepishly.

Jaehyun frowns. “But you- what do you put in your coffee then?”

Juyeon grins ruefully. “Oat milk or I’ll drink it black if I can’t find any at the store. I think Younghoon hyung left that carton when he moved out. We can go get some later if you don’t mind waiting?”

Jaehyun determinedly muscles past the revelation that he’s been drinking at-least-three-week-old milk. “Nah, I can just run out. Do you need anything? Some more organic mould perhaps?” He snickers as Juyeon turns bright red.

“Okay, I _thought_ that’s just how organic blueberries might look in the wild, I didn’t _realise_ the fluff was not a high-fibre edible botanical feature as I had assumed,” Juyeon retorts hotly. A second later he whines, “You said you wouldn’t bring it up again, hyung.”

“Uh huh,” Jaehyun grins as he stuffs his feet into sandals.

“ _Ugh_.”

“Say bye bye to hyung,” Jaehyun waves without looking back. The front door closes unceremoniously behind him. 

The air outside is warm and not humid for once. Jaehyun finds himself marvelling at the way the heat today seems to coast over the edges of the buildings and the concrete pavements, glancing off his own skin in waves rather than blankets.

He’s approaching his third week of living in Seoul with Juyeon in a couple days, and somehow he’s managed to settle in faster than he might’ve thought. Work is fantastic — filled with laughter with Sunwoo in down times and more engaging work than he’s done since university. Man Youngho is a simultaneously terrifying and awe-inspiring boss - always soft-spoken, perhaps even gentle, but with the flintiest gaze Jaehyun’s ever seen - and being around him seems to elicit an osmosis of music knowledge.

Or, so Jaehyun feels anyway.

The thing is, being around all these people at his job who are profoundly passionate about music is awakening something inside _him_. Picking a career in audio engineering had been an act in self-moderation, he knows — engineering had always been a practical degree, something he’d been good at, and a vehicle to stay in the music industry. It was a concession he had given himself: dip your toe in your pipe dream but only if you have a skillset to fall back on.

The stolen moments at night before sleeping and in the morning on the chilly walk to school in Uiseong-eup had been spent dreaming of being a composer, writing songs that cascaded melodies like the showering leaves of elm trees upon a particularly strong gust of wind, but—

Jaehyun shakes himself.

He’s at the store now, and the cool air-conditioning immediately raises goosebumps along his arms. Pipe dreams are just that — silly little fantasies to keep you warm at night or fun things to think about on long walks down empty roads.

He heads back to the dairy section and grabs a carton of skim milk.  
  


* * *

  
“I’m hooome!” he yells as he walks through the front door. The living room is empty save for Juyeon’s blanket den, but he hears his roommate’s bedroom door open when he announces himself. “I got you an extra thing of oat milk at the store, Juyeonie, and look, I found you some organic blueberries, sans mould—”

“ _Stop_ ,” Juyeon groans, and Jaehyun turns with laughter on his lips only to stop short at the sight of another person slouching casually by Juyeon in the hallway, stocky with cropped short hair and surprisingly muscular arms under a white T-shirt.

“Oh! Uh, hi sorry I didn’t realise you had company,” Jaehyun says awkwardly before bowing.

“No worries, Sangyeon hyung was just about to leave,” Juyeon says as he wraps an arm around the person’s broad shoulders.

Jaehyun fights the instinctive scrunching of his face in confusion, and replies instead with a faint, “Jaehyun.”

“Sorry, I’d love to hang out but I have a prior appointment,” Sangyeon says with a pleasant smile and responds with a bow in kind. “It’s nice to meet you though, we should all get drinks sometime. I live just down the street.”

There’s not much time to ponder the situation before Sangyeon is hugging Juyeon goodbye and stepping out of their flat with a pleasant wave.

Juyeon steps up to the counter and starts looking through the bags. “Thanks for getting the oat milk and fruit,” he smiles into the haul, seemingly preoccupied and unassuming.

“Your friend- you call her ‘hyung’?” Jaehyun blurts out. Juyeon goes still for a fraction of a second before continuing to take the groceries out of the bag. The paper rustles cavernously loud in the quiet of their apartment.

“Him,” Juyeon corrects, when he finally looks up. His tone is gentle and mild, but there’s something steely in his gaze that Jaehyun doesn’t quite understand. “Sangyeon hyung goes by he/him.”

Now that Juyeon is looking at him instead of the bag, Jaehyun can tell that there’s something stiff about the set of Juyeon’s shoulders. He bites his lip and squints uncertainly.

“Him? But…”

Juyeon exhales, and, for the first time since they’ve started living together, touches Jaehyun. It’s light, a ghost of fingertips on Jaehyun’s jut of a wrist bone, but it makes Jaehyun look down in shock anyway.

“Hyung, do you want some tea? Sit please,” Juyeon says as he moves around Jaehyun to get to the kettle.

Bewildered, Jaehyun sits. He watches as Juyeon very methodically boils the water and tips jasmine tea leaves out into his strainer shaped like a whale — a relic from his previous roommate, Younghoon, who had apparently been studying marine biology before he whisked away to Australia on a fellowship. All of this is done in complete silence, not quite tense but not quite tranquil either.

Finally, a steaming cup of tea is pushed in front of Jaehyun, and Juyeon takes a seat beside him on the barstools.

“What do you know about being trans, hyung?” Juyeon’s question is artless and quietly asked.

Jaehyun frowns before taking a sip. “As in transsexuals? Not much, I guess.”

Juyeon smiles gently and shakes his head. “Ah, we say trans or transgender now. Transsexual as a term has largely fallen out of use, and I only use it if someone tells me they prefer it for themselves.”

He swivels his body to face Jaehyun properly. “Sex and gender, although they have been conflated for a long time, are actually different things. Sex is your biological status, largely associated with your chromosomes and anatomy, whereas gender is kind of just your choice. How you like others to see you, I guess.” Juyeon takes his own sip and swipes his thumb at the rim of the mug to catch the lingering moisture there.

“There’s a whole spectrum of how people like to deal with gender in their own lives, and it’s often a fluid, un-static experience,” Juyeon goes on. “Sometimes it’s a matter of breaking away from their assigned role - gender non-conformity - or sometimes it’s not identifying with the gender binary—”

Here, Jaehyun makes a noise of confusion and Juyeon shakes his head. “Sorry, being non-binary means not identifying with man or woman, and many non-binary people will prefer different pronouns to he or she. And sometimes, like in Sangyeon hyung’s case, people feel like they’re a different gender from the sex they were at birth. Sangyeon hyung feels like a man, so to me - and others - that’s what he is.”

Juyeon says it simply, like he’s remarking on the weather or the day of the week. He doesn’t say it like Jaehyun’s entire brain is being turned inside out, like suddenly a flurry of new words are being catapulted into his consciousness like hailstorms in winter.

Jaehyun swallows thickly and picks at his lip. “So…” he trails off, but Juyeon seems happy to wait. He even nods encouragingly and leans forward, as if he really wants to know what Jaehyun is thinking. “So it doesn’t matter? What someone’s born? It’s just…whatever they feel like they are?”

Juyeon nods and his face lights up. “Right! Of course, even the sexual binary of male and female is kind of constructed — there are plenty of people who are intersex or who simply don’t fit in to one or the other. The gender playbook, too, as it was enforced by misogynistic systems in dominating world cultures is already out the window. Women don’t _have_ to be meek or submissive or feminine, and men don’t _have_ to be authoritative and assertive and masculine. Gender itself is an entirely socially constructed system; there’s no legitimate tie between biology and personality or preference.”

Jaehyun shakes his head wildly. “But, then- I- where does it end? I get it, my sister isn’t any of those things. Fine! Easy! She doesn’t have to be, noona is so- she’s great! But how are you supposed to know what to call someone if they could be _anything?”_

“You just ask, hyung,” Juyeon responds, like it’s _simple_.

Jaehyun gapes. “But you can’t just go around asking people that! What if they’re offended?”

Juyeon makes a face. “If they’re offended, then they’re offended, no?”

He cradles the mug close and watches Jaehyun with kind eyes. “The worst that could happen is that someone who is ignorant gets offended and you explain to them why it’s important to ask, _or_ you offend a bigot who is uninterested in being considerate of others.”

Jaehyun goes slack-jawed. There’s no logical rebuttal, no reasonable response to this when Juyeon is being so gentle and offers such well-reasoned arguments, but _still._

“Isn’t it…like, messy? Even if, okay, there’s no real meaning behind being a man or a woman, don’t- like, isn’t it a lot? All of…this?”

Juyeon nods and exhales slowly as he considers the question. “I suppose if you think the status quo is intrinsically correct, then it might seem that way.” Soft, dark eyes turn on Jaehyun, not an ounce of judgement or anger, but brimming over with compassion as warm and sweet as honey. “But what if the status quo is wrong? What if a bunch of people long ago forced all of these complex, nuanced identities into two boring white boxes and we all just never said no?”

He rests his chin on his hand and smiles sadly at Jaehyun. “I grant you, it’s confusing when it’s your first time hearing about this, but it’s so easy to be kind, isn’t it? I might not always understand why someone feels the way they do, but it takes so little out of me to say ‘okay’.”

Juyeon sighs and drains the rest of his tea. “I think you’re kind, hyung. There’s no rush — we’ll keep talking about this and I can send you articles, and of course, you should talk to Sangyeon hyung. I mean, ask first if he wants to talk, but he’s always been so open with everyone.” Red lips curl into a gentle, sanguine parenthesis. “But all that aside, I think you’re kind.”

Jaehyun gnaws on his bottom lip and regards Juyeon — hopeful and young, every inch of his handsome face unfurled like a tender bud opening itself to the world for the first time. It’s him, Jaehyun realises. He’s the one that Juyeon is placing his trust in, who he’s trusting to be kind with the people he clearly loves so dearly.

Jaehyun exhales and takes another sip.

“Okay, yes send me those articles. Thank you, Juyeonie.”

The bud blooms under the sun, velveteen and optimistic.  
  


* * *

  
The bustle of the mandu restaurant is palpable as Jaehyun and Sunwoo squeeze in. There aren’t many cheap places to eat around the recording studio, not with the big entertainment companies being clumped around Gangnam as they are with celebrities and industry stars awash, but Sunwoo had dragged him here on his second day of work and it’s become their spot.

One rickety table in the back of the hole-in-the-wall eatery is free, and Sunwoo makes a mad dash for it only to go skidding into one of the plastic stools there.

“Yah! No running around my restaurant, you little hooligan!” the halmeoni who owns the place berates, waving her large wooden spoon in Sunwoo’s face in what can only be described as a fond manner.

“Sorry, halmeoni!” Sunwoo apologises with his hands in the air and a beseeching pout. “I was just so excited to come see you that I couldn’t help but—”

“Yah!” the little old lady turns pink, and Jaehyun has to fight to hide his smile as he takes a seat across from Sunwoo. “Boys these days — no manners! So brazen!” She turns to Jaehyun, and to his surprise, raps the spoon on his shoulder.

“Well? What do you have to say? What, you’re just going to walk past me and not greet me? After I practically fed you from skin and bones!” she demands, and Jaehyun turns his own hopeless expression on her.

“No, no! Halmeoni, I was just thinking of the right way to express how ardently I’d missed you,” he says earnestly. The restaurant owner brandishes her spoon in the air with a ‘bah!’ but her sharp eyes crinkle happily anyway as she sets two laminated menus down on the table.

“Call me when you’re ready to order,” she says briskly before pouring them both a cup of barley tea. They grin up at her, retreating into their most boyish selves and she rolls her eyes again, then bustles off.

“Beef today?” Sunwoo asks as he scans the menu of dumplings. “Or shrimp maybe? I haven’t had those in a while.”

Jaehyun shrugs and scans his own while he drinks his tea. “I don’t mind, I’m probably gonna get pork, but we can share whichever one you want.”

Sunwoo sets his menu down with a decisive sound. “Nice, I’ll get shrimp to share then, and you can have one of my beef if you trade me one of your pork.” He aims a wily smile at Jaehyun, who snorts but acquiesces anyway.

They order, and once their menus are taken away, Sunwoo leans over to grab chopsticks from the communal cup on the table.

As he places a pair in front of Jaehyun, he asks, “So how’ve you been feeling about work? Do you like it here?”

Jaehyun smiles and takes another sip of tea. “Yeah, it’s been great actually. I didn’t expect to like the work so much if I’m honest but it’s really cool. The atmosphere- it’s really something else.”

Sunwoo grins and bobs his head. Sweat is beading at his brow, the oppressive Seoul heat having seeped its way into the small restaurant, and he wipes at it with the edge of his wrist. “Yeah, that’s one of my favourite things too. It’s cool working somewhere where everyone _enjoys_ what they’re doing, y’know? It’s not just a job or an income, everyone’s really passionate about music.”

Jaehyun nods vehemently. “Right! Hyungsik sunbaenim and Man PD-nim got into a whole argument yesterday about the death of albums and how we should do an episode on the future of post-album music and, like, I’d never even thought about that before.”

Sunwoo is about to reply, his eyes lighting up at the subject, when three steaming plates of dumplings are dropped unceremoniously onto the table. The two of them smile gratefully at the waiter, the restaurant owner’s teenager grandson, before tucking in.

Between bites, Sunwoo says, “The best thing about working for Man PD-nim is that he really treats the team like family, y’know?” When Jaehyun makes a disbelieving face - or, as best he can with his mouth full - Sunwoo waves his chopsticks in the air excitedly, “No seriously, hyung! He’s a really great boss, I know he seems stern or whatever, but he actually cares about everyone’s careers and happiness a lot.”

With some difficulty, he swallows, before continuing, “He’ll bend over backwards to make stuff happen. If you’re a good worker and have good ideas, he’s really supportive — last year, I was scribbling this tiny melody at lunch and he sat down next to me, and then-” Sunwoo snaps his fingers loudly, “-just like that, it was in one of the b-sides of the next comeback he produced. Gave me credit in the fine print, cut of the royalties, everything.”

Jaehyun gapes at his friend. “No _way_. He gave you credit? Since when do people in the industry do that?”

Sunwoo’s eyes bug out. “I know! It was insane, I got so many calls from other agencies after that wanting to know if I was writing more stuff. ‘Course I said no, I’m sticking with the company but still,” he nods sagely. “He really opens doors for you. Have you thought about writing anything recently?”

“Who, me?” Jaehyun starts. “No I uh, I don’t really do that anymore.”

Sunwoo’s eyebrows lift in surprise. “Really? Oh I just thought- I mean you were always walking around with that notebook in high school, I guess I just assumed you still wrote.”

Jaehyun laughs a little uncomfortably. “C’mon, I was a kid. Kids have dumb dreams all the time — remember how Jiwoo noona insisted she wanted to be an Olympic high-jumper that one year? And she’s fucking tiny. You know.”

Beside him, Sunwoo shrugs and polishes off another mandu. “Sure, I guess. You were good though, I wouldn’t’ve called it a dumb dream, especially not now. You should think about it.”

Jaehyun bites the inside of his cheek. “Yeah. Right. Hey we should go, I think our lunch hour is ending soon and I wanna grab a pack of gum on the way back,” he says, checking his watch. Sunwoo quickly pops the last dumpling in his mouth before shoving his sunglasses back onto his head.

“‘Kay, my turn to pay today right?” he asks. Jaehyun grins and makes prayer hands, to which Sunwoo rolls his eyes.

By the time they get back to the building, they only have a minute to spare.  
  


* * *  
  


Jaehyun doesn’t remember this himself, but he’s three when he hears the word _hyodo_ for the first time.

It happens when he’s at the playground with his grandmother. She had still been alive then, although her health was waning by this point, and she always sat on the bench by the horse-shaped spring rider Jaehyun liked to rock back and forth on.

“Jaehyun-ah!”

Jaehyun looks up from the point in the distance he’s focused on, an entire world of horseback chases fading back into reality when he hears his grandmother’s voice.

“Coming, halmeoni!” he calls back before hopping off to waddle over to her. His eyes light up when he sees what’s in her hands. There’s a small plastic bag with a pale cube of tofu cut into slabs, and Jaehyun can see the steam escaping out of the small opening clutched between his grandmother’s fingers.

“Look, sweetheart, Jeonghoon’s eomma ran into the tofu ahjussi and brought some for you,” his grandmother says when he reaches her. “Isn’t that nice? What do we say, Jaehyun-ah?”

Jaehyun turns to the woman standing by his grandmother who has a sweet and humouring smile on her broad face, and bows. “Thank you,” he chants dutifully, then reaches out to grab the tofu his grandmother is holding out with her hand wrapped in the bag.

He goes to take his first bite, and the tofu is _perfect_ — warm and soft so that it falls apart on his tongue. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jeonghoon’s mother call her son over and wipe away the sweat that has accumulated on his forehead, even though he’s six and Jaehyun’s only three and can wipe his own forehead. She hands him a piece as well.

Jeonghoon takes it, then holds it up to his mother for her to take a bite first.

Beside Jaehyun, his grandmother coos. “Ah, Hyunsook-ah, your son is so _hyodohamnida_. He’ll make you proud when he’s older.”

 _Hyodo_. Jaehyun doesn’t know what it means, but he watches curiously from the side as Jeonghoon’s mother blushes and waves his grandmother off, but looks at her son with a little more pride shining from her expressive eyes than before.

 _Hyodo._ Jaehyun doesn’t know what it means yet, and although he will one day - will learn that it means to be filial, which in turn means being a good child and son and a whole slew of other cultural expectations that make him simultaneously warm and proud as well as cold and worried - for now, all he knows is that it’s a good thing.

It takes time, of course, to learn. It takes time to learn that _hyodo_ is waiting for your parents to take their food first, that it’s not saying no to them, that it’s carrying bags of rice for his mother and sitting behind his father after dinner to dig bony fingers into appa’s tired muscles until his knuckles hurt.

Jaehyun is seven when his class is assigned a half-page essay on what their hopes and dreams are.

When he brings his essay home and reads it aloud to his parents, the words “my dream is to be rich enough to buy eomma and appa a house that is hot all winter and with a big TV so appa doesn’t have to sit so close because it’s bad for his eyes” make his mother cry. He’s not too sure why, but it fills him to the brim with pride anyway, molten and bubbling like the rice syrup his mother makes sometimes so Jaehyun and Jiwoo can have garaetteok.

Jaehyun doesn’t remember this day with his grandma and Jeonghoon’s eomma himself, but from then on - after he starts school, after his grandmother passes quietly in her sleep, after he grows up bigger and taller - _hyodo_ becomes engrained in his bones, scripture in the language of his DNA.

As an adult, Jaehyun doesn’t even really know how to define what it means to be filial. It’s nebulous and complex, like following a set of rules in a language you can read but not speak. All he knows is if he really thinks about it, every waking moment is spent, consciously or not, on the enterprise of becoming a son his mother can be proud of — just like Jeonghoon’s mother is proud of her son.  
  


* * *

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Juyeon_

_Do you know if Jacob/Kevin  
_ _prefer beer or soju? I’m at  
_ _the store now_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Lol hyung you don’t need to  
bring anything to movie night_

_The hosts are called hosts for  
_ _a reason_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Sounds uncouth but ok_

**Lee Juyeon**

_¯\\_(_ ツ _)_/¯_

_…_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_WHAT THE FUCK JACOB  
_ _JUST ASKED ME WHAT BEER I  
_ _BROUGHT AND WHEN I CHOKED_

_HE FUCKING LAUGHED_

_LAUGHED JUYEON. IN MY FACE_

_DID YOU SET ME UP_

_ALSO WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU  
_ _I DON’T KNOW YOUR FRIENDS  
_ _WELL ENOUGH TO NAVIGATE  
_ _THIS KIND OF SOCIAL SITUATION_

**Lee Juyeon**

_HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA_

_Punk’d!!!!!!!! Sucka!!!!!_

_Sry just left the library, got  
_ _distracted_

 _I hope Kev filmed that hahahah_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_How are they letting you get a PhD_

**Lee Juyeon**

_You know, it’s really hard to say_

* * *  
  


Jaehyun hovers awkwardly in Kevin and Jacob’s kitchen as he engages in a battle of wills with the blush on his face. Jacob’s politely disengaged inquiry after the beers and then immediate facial morph into what can only be described as impish glee will give Jaehyun chest pain for months to come, he’s sure of it.

He’s in the middle of moodily contemplating the soda he’s nursing and whether it would be _too_ mean to deface Juyeon’s prized copy of 17th century classic The Cloud Dream of the Nine with permanent marker when he feels a presence at his elbow.

“You look like you’re plotting death,” Sangyeon says amicably. Dark eyes glint teasingly over the rim of a beer can as _he -_ Jaehyun firmly reminds himself - takes a sip. It’s the first time he’s seen Sangyeon since they met in the flat, and suddenly Jaehyun is very nervous about saying the wrong thing.

Of course, Juyeon had talked him through the motions of dismantling the gender binary, a brief history of the LGBT movement in South Korea and the world at large, and what he called “ways to be a good ally”, but still. Jaehyun doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.

“Oh you know, just wondering how hard it is to bury a body in a city full of cement,” he answers weakly. Sangyeon chuckles and leans against the counter, broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his button up.

“Probably kinda hard,” he muses as he looks out into the archway leading to the living room. Jacob and Kevin’s place is even smaller than the place he shares with Juyeon, but Jaehyun likes the little architectural details here and there that give the flat character.

Sangyeon turns his gaze back to him then and grins pleasantly. “So Juyeonie told me I’m the first trans guy you’ve ever met.”

It takes everything in Jaehyun not to choke again.

“Oh! Yeah uh- he did? Why- I mean he sent me- we talked a whole tonne and- and I’ve been reading lots! Yeah, so much. _So_ \- lots. Of articles.” The verbal diarrhoea comes to an abrupt halt, and, face flaming, he reaffirms limply, “ _Articles._ ”

Sangyeon bursts into laughter, breathy and booming, and Jaehyun would note how nice of a laugh it is if he wasn’t too busy considering self-immolation or how hard it would be to immigrate to Samoa. The weather’s nice there, isn’t it, and Jaehyun had read an article once in a dentist’s office about the _5 Samoan Waterfalls You Just Can’t Miss!_

“Dude,” Sangyeon chuckles as he comes down. “It’s cool, you’re _fine_. I’m just messing around, what I actually meant to say was Juyeonie told me you used to play tennis in high school — I’ve been looking for someone to play with for ages! Would you be interested in rallying a bit with me, maybe play a game?”

Jaehyun’s face brightens when he sees Sangyeon’s lighthearted expression — maybe he can stay in Seoul after all. “Yeah for sure! I haven’t played in ages, that sounds like fun.”

“Great! Are you free Sunday?”

Jaehyun nods. “You know a place to play? I can’t imagine there are a tonne of tennis courts around the city.”

Sangyeon winks. “I teach a night class for the photography department at Yonsei so I get access to the school sports grounds. Here, give me your phone, I’ll text you a time.” When Jaehyun dutifully hands his phone over to Sangyeon, he adds, “Man, you don’t know how many times I’ve tried to convince Jacob and Juyeon to leave basketball for just _one_ game, but they’re such _puritans_ about the whole thing. Won’t budge!”

A tentative smile pulls at Jaehyun’s lips. “Inferior beings,” he offers dismissively, and when Sangyeon throws his head back in laughter, Jaehyun joins him, all previous tension forgotten.

A small part of his brain is acutely aware of the fact that it shouldn’t have been on Sangyeon to make _him_ feel comfortable - he’s read enough articles to know that at least - but he’s glad for him anyway. Glad for his affability and sunny personality, all easy humour and pleasant charm.

By the time Juyeon does finally arrive, Jaehyun is squeezed beside Sangyeon and Jacob on the sofa arguing boisterously over which sport requires more physical prowess. When Juyeon bursts in, immediately faced with Chanhee’s scolding and Kevin trying to shove one of his homemade ice lollies into his fist - _“they’re good- no I swear, no funky flavours this time!”_ \- his gaze meets Jaehyun’s over the tops of his friends’ heads.

His eyes, glowing and warm, seem to twinkle like the fairy lights Jacob and Kevin have hung all around their walls.  
  


* * *  
  


Here’s the thing: Jaehyun likes his new coworkers a lot — he really, really does. They’re nice, and helpful and all very fun, and it certainly helps that Sunwoo is a familiar face that keeps him grounded amidst the turmoil of industry celebrities running in and out of the studio.

It’s just that they’re a _lot_. Jaehyun likes banter and quick exchanges as well as anyone, but some days it feels like he’s doing mental acrobatics just to keep up with the razor sharp back-and-forth that his colleagues all seem so fond of participating in.

Today, for example —

At their roundtable discussions about which artists to feature, Jaehyun pushes for an up and coming solo artist from an underprivileged urban background.

“Her voice is so honest,” he argues. “I think people need that. The impression that music nowadays is all about the star-spangled one percent’s lives makes music seem so inaccessible to many—”

One of the other marketing managers cuts in, “No one needs honesty nowadays though. Feelings? Vile.”

Everyone laughs. Her friend takes a sip of water and murmurs archly around the opening, “Just cause you’re dead inside.”

Another writer throws in their two cents, “Also I’m _pretty_ sure you were feeling something when you cried last week at the noraebang.”

The sound engineer flushes. “Oh so you _want_ to be strangled to death in a rancid back alleyway. Noted!”

“Better than waking up every morning to come to this dump,” comes the swift volley back. Jaehyun’s eyes fly to his boss, Youngho, but Youngho merely barks a half-hearted ‘yah!’ before returning to his phone. They all laugh, Jaehyun half a beat behind everyone else.

“But I concur with Eunbi sunbae, Jaehyun-ssi,” the writer turns back to the topic at hand. “Aren’t we sick and tired of honesty? We’re all cogs in the indomitable machine of capitalism anyway; sugar-glazed lies are our collective destiny!” His gaze dances with the merriment that young, whip-smart and well-educated people get when they’re in their element.

Jaehyun freezes, all eyes on him. He’s getting better at this sort of thing but still — “Type two diabetes is the silent killer of our generation?” A fumble, and the ball sails clear past the goal.

The spark in everyone’s eyes dims, but they’re pleasant enough about his obtuseness and offer him a sympathetic laugh or two. His artist even gets picked for one of the shows two months down the line, and no one seems to think less of his inability to keep up with their repartee.

Even so, when he gets home that night, he’s emotionally drained. The prickliness of it all - of sarcasm and black humour - exhausts him. It’s not that banter isn’t fun, because it is; like when he and Juyeon will go back and forth for hours about who is more likely to survive an apocalypse (they always end up agreeing on Jaehyun if there are zombies and Juyeon if it’s a nuclear disaster).

It’s just that sometimes he wonders if all the people out here who trade in this social currency of armour plating and barbed jibes are only doing it to hide their vulnerabilities. Almost like they think being honest and open is uncultured somehow.

Jaehyun sighs. That’s a thought for another day, when his brain doesn’t hurt.

The overhead lights are off in the living room but Juyeon is awake and curled up on the sofa with a cup of cocoa. A handsome man is taking a walk down tree-lined boulevards on the TV, and Juyeon pauses it when he turns to smile.

“Hey, Juyeonie,” Jaehyun greets tiredly. He tosses his messenger bag onto the barstool and slumps onto the sofa beside his roommate.

“Long day?” Juyeon asks with a sympathetic smile.

Jaehyun doesn’t hesitate before saying, “Yeah. Just drained, I guess. You?”

For a split second, he expects Juyeon to give him an acerbically sardonic answer like his coworkers might, but instead, Juyeon simply makes a face and nods. “Same.”

They chuckle at each other - closer to a quick succession of exhales than laughter - before Jaehyun leans his head back. As always, Juyeon doesn’t initiate physical contact, but the proximity of his body, so close that Jaehyun can feel the warmth radiating off his golden skin like summer had somehow trapped itself in his bones, is endlessly comforting.

He’s still tired - nothing can change that - but sitting next to Juyeon in front of the soft sound of his favourite movie about a man wandering Paris feels an awful lot like resting.  
  


* * *

  
Jaehyun’s eyes flutter open. In front of him, the sky is cloudless and so blue his eyes hurt, one endless expanse of cornflower. In the distance, he can hear the sound of children screaming with laughter, and the faint hum of impetuous joy that always seems to burst before the close of summer.

They’re at Hanggang Park, laying only a few hundred metres away from the Han and parked rather perfectly under a tree. The lattice of leaves and delicate branches lets in the perfect amount of light so that Jaehyun can feel it dancing all over his skin in disparate speckles but not so much that he has to shade his eyes.

He turns his head where he’s lying on Juyeon’s old gingham picnic blanket - _what is this, the Sound of Music?_ he’d asked when his roommate had pulled it out of the hallway closet - and simply observes for a bit.

Juyeon’s eyes are open but staring up, up, up, almost unseeing. It’s the expression he gets when he’s pondering something particularly captivating, he knows. Jaehyun remembers when he’d asked him once why he didn’t close his eyes, and Juyeon had shrugged and said _it’s easier to half-see than to not see at all. Reminds me I’m still here, I guess_.

“What’re you thinking about?” he asks now. Juyeon blinks out of his reverie and turns his face to smile serenely at Jaehyun.

“Death.”

The saliva he’d been swallowing gets promptly lodged in Jaehyun’s throat, and he has to throw his body upright to prevent permanent harm to the state of his vitality. Juyeon, alarmed, sits up too and begins patting Jaehyun ineffectually on the back.

“Oh my god are you alr—”

“ _Death?_ ” Jaehyun croaks. “You’re sitting here, on a Thursday fucking afternoon, thinking about _death?_ ”

Just then, Chanhee and Sangyeon show up carrying ice creams for everyone. They hand the strawberry cone to Jaehyun and the chocolate cup to Juyeon before plopping down unceremoniously on the blanket, faces illuminated attractively by slivers of sun.

“Is Juyeonie thinking about morbid things again?” Sangyeon asks teasingly between licks. Chanhee snorts and arranges his short shorts so that they're tugged down a little over his pale thighs.

“Isn’t he always?” he asks, before reclining against the base of the tree. He is the picture of elegance, and Jaehyun’s eyes linger for a moment on the sweep of his long legs.

“What, so this is normal?” Jaehyun asks while Chanhee forcefully tugs Juyeon’s head and shoulders into his lap. “He just sits around contemplating death and you’re all fine with it?”

He’s a little more on edge now that Chanhee and Sangyeon have arrived, and settles back into a half-sitting half-horizontal position at the periphery of the group. Of course, Juyeon had told him they’d be coming - had framed the outing as a group activity to begin with - and Sangyeon had very kindly texted them asking what their ice cream orders were.

Jaehyun and Sangyeon have hung out, even, the last couple Sundays to play tennis. Or, more like they’d played one quick match the first time, Jaehyun’s shoulders had screamed in protest and Sangyeon had offered to turn their previously-agreed-upon weekly matches into half strength training, half brief games. Jaehyun had very gratefully accepted.

Even so, he can’t help but feel a little nervous around them. They still feel like Juyeon’s friends, not his, and Jaehyun tongue works overtime at his ice cream if only to have something to do.

“Sometimes,” Chanhee hums in answer to Jaehyun’s question. He runs his fingers through Juyeon’s dark hair and Juyeon almost purrs as he leans into it, mouth opening occasionally as Chanhee feeds him between his own bites. (Something primordial seems to twitch in Jaehyun’s skull in response, but he writes it off as brain-freeze.) “It’s not all that macabre when you hear his explanation.”

Sangyeon polishes off his ice cream and balls up the paper wrapped around the cone. “Juyeon-ah, tell poor Jaehyun your whole death spiel,” he pokes, and Juyeon huffs out a sleepy laugh.

Eyes still closed, he murmurs, “I just think it’s nice to think about death sometimes, y’know? Did you know that human existence makes up only zero point—”

“—zero, zero, zero, zero one five percent,” Chanhee and Sangyeon recite in bored voices. Jaehyun stares at them, but Juyeon continues as if he hadn’t even noticed.

“—percent of the time that the universe has existed? That means that if you scaled the entire history of the universe starting at the Big Bang, to a single calendar year, human existence starts at 11:52PM on—”

“—December 31st,” drawled by his two unfazed disciples.

“Yes, thank you, December 31st,” Juyeon says, finally opening his eyes. “That’s _nothing!_ We are so piddly, so completely and utterly inconsequential, and the most notable experiences we’ll have in our lives are being born and dying.”

He sits up and looks at Jaehyun with bright eyes. “Isn’t that so freeing? Knowing that no matter what happens, the good or the bad, we all die anyway? It really makes you think about what’s important to you in life.”

Jaehyun gawks at him, this young man with sunbeams glinting off his dark hair and sparkling teeth as he talks about the _freedom he gets from being inconsequential_ and answers a little hysterically, “No?! I don’t— _no?_ I don’t find that freeing at all?”

Sangyeon chuckles and leans over to pat Jaehyun comfortingly on the knee. “Don’t worry, I don’t either,” he says placatingly. “How have things been going? Are you settling into the city well?”

Juyeon and Chanhee turn their heads over to look at Jaehyun too, and the three of them have matching kind but curious expressions on their faces. The attention makes Jaehyun want to squirm a little but he fiercely tamps that urge down.

“Ah it’s good — really good actually. Way better than I expected, I kinda thought I’d be more lonely than I am so that’s been nice? It’s been…really nice. Getting to know you guys, I mean.”

Jiwoo’s accusatory voice - _for someone who is blunt to the point of callousness, you’re really bad at expressing your feelings -_ echoes dimly in the back of his mind. Funnily enough, perhaps because they didn’t find his statement steeped in emotional obtuseness, or perhaps simply because they’re too nice to acknowledge it, Juyeon, Chanhee and Sangyeon all smile encouragingly.

“That’s great,” Chanhee says gently. “We’re all really glad you moved in with Juyeon, you’ve been a great addition to the group.”

Jaehyun’s face must show his surprise because Chanhee chuckles teasingly. “What, you didn’t think we considered you one of us?” When Jaehyun doesn’t respond, the smile falls promptly off his face.

“You’re kidding right?” he asks bewilderedly. Juyeon sits up, face unbearably earnest, and Sangyeon leans in too.

“You think we don’t consider you part of the group?” Juyeon asks, almost sounding _hurt_ , the loveable idiot he is.

Sangyeon cuts in, “I don’t just play tennis with just _anyone_ , Jaehyun-ah.” He sounds appalled at the notion.

To this, Jaehyun points out dryly, “I’m pretty sure your exact words when you invited me to play were ‘I’ve been looking for someone for ages.’”

Sangyeon makes a noise of protest.

“Yes but you’re not some street cretin Juyeon dragged in,” Chanhee argues. “I mean, bleeding heart he is, he absolutely has brought in some human trash, believe you me-” Juyeon yelps indignantly and Jaehyun bites back a laugh, “-but we don’t think of you as one of his charity projects. We all love having you around.”

Just then, footsteps draw near. “Ooh are we hyping someone up? I love hyping people up, is it Jaehyunie’s turn?”

The four of them crane their necks to see Jacob and Kevin ducking under some particularly low-hanging branches to get to their little huddle. They’re still dressed in their work clothes — Kevin is wearing a buttercream yellow sweater vest over a white quarter-sleeve shirt and Jacob still has his P.E. whistle slung over a red sweat-wicking shirt.

A bubble of joy swells in Jaehyun’s throat at the nickname, and it threatens to spill over when the two newcomers promptly and swiftly wrap themselves around him. Kevin immediately slumps into Jaehyun’s lap and Jacob kneels behind Jaehyun with his arms slung around his shoulders.

He remembers how caught off guard he’d been when they first initiated him into their abundance of skinship, how he’d mentally cursed Juyeon for not being there at their weekend lunch to walk him through the intricacies of this particular social convention.

Jaehyun had been panicking intensely before Chanhee had looked over at the three of them, Jacob with his head on Jaehyun’s shoulder and Kevin with his arm locked around Jaehyun’s limp one, and said, “Boys can touch without being gay, you know.”

Jaehyun had gone maroon and then puce, but Jacob and Kevin had burst out laughing.

“Chanhee! Stop teasing him, Jesus,” Jacob scolded half-heartedly before turning to Jaehyun. “Does this make you uncomfortable? You are totally valid if it does, I’m sorry, we really should’ve asked first.”

Jaehyun’s had frozen, brain painfully blank for a second before it kicked back into gear. If he really thought about it, really separated himself from all the “constructs imposed upon us by the veneration of toxic masculinity” _(Juyeon’s words),_ no, he wasn’t uncomfortable.

In fact, it was kind of nice. He had always secretly enjoyed it when Jiwoo would comb her fingers through his hair or force him to stay still while she linked their arms during movie nights growing up. This wasn’t qualitatively different from that, was it?

So he’d responded, “No, it’s- don’t worry about it.” And that had been that.

(Of course, later, when Kevin had gotten up to leave after lunch to go meet a friend, he had kissed Jacob goodbye. Jaehyun had stared wildly at them for a moment, suddenly feeling like an absolute _idiot_ for not picking up on the ‘babe’ and the incessant use of ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, until Chanhee leaned over and whispered, “Then again, sometimes when boys touch, it’s _super_ gay. But you’re good.”)

Regardless, after much thought and internal processing about how to be a good friend to what he suddenly realised was his very not-cis-slash-het new friend-hopefuls, Jaehyun had been happy. Happy for Jacob and Kevin, for being young and in love, and happy for himself because _wow_ , is hand-holding really nice.

“Jaehyun here didn’t think we considered him a part of our friend group,” Sangyeon says accusingly now. Jaehyun has nary a second to protest before Jacob and Kevin are shooting him dismayed looks.

“Jaehyun hyung!” Kevin squawks. “You what?”

“Of course we consider you a part of our group, how could you even say that?” Jacob reprimands. His voice comes eerily close to that reproachful tone that teachers who are always their students’ favourites use, the one that says ‘I’m disappointed because I _care.’_ Jaehyun feels completely terrible.

“No, I- I totally think of us as friends!” he says hastily. “I just didn’t- I mean, I didn’t _expect_ you guys to- I kind of thought I was just Juyeon’s roommate?”

“Hyung, I think of us as friends,” Juyeon murmurs, sounding like a kicked puppy. “We’re not just roommates to me, we’re friends who _also_ live together. If I ever made you feel like I don’t consider us—”

“No, no!” Jaehyun hastily interrupts. Juyeon had been beginning to look more dejected by the second, and Jaehyun leans forward to grab his hands.

There’s a brief instant when a little whisper of consciousness in Jaehyun’s brain notes that this is the first time he’s ever really initiated touching another guy, let alone Juyeon who he’s only known for a couple months. Jaehyun steamrolls past it with the determination of a heavyweight champion.

“You didn’t, really — I really- your friendship means a lot to me,” he says.

It’s quiet around them. The only thing keeping Jaehyun tethered is the warmth of Juyeon’s hand underneath his - large and bronze like he’d held the sun in his palms once - and the way Juyeon’s eyes crinkle and shine as he beams back at Jaehyun.

Then—

“And they were _roommates!”_ Kevin fake dry sobs.

Jaehyun promptly lets go of Juyeon’s hand, and their entire group turns on Kevin with confused expressions. Jacob gives a hackneyed shake of his head before waving his hand dismissively.

“It’s an American thing, this Vine meme, don’t worry about it. It’s not that funny in Korean.”

This - although likely unintentionally on Jacob’s part - sets Juyeon off on an excited spiel about the structures of rhetorical and verbal comedy in different cultures. Chanhee tugs him back down into his lap but shoots Jaehyun an exasperated look over Juyeon’s head, and Sangyeon laughs as he, too, flattens himself against the picnic blanket. Jacob’s arms stay wound around Jaehyun’s neck, and although he’d blush if anyone pointed it out, Jaehyun’s hand finds itself tentatively and then idly playing with Kevin’s dark hair.

Summer is coming to a close but Jaehyun finds he can still feel it in all of his bones.  
  


* * *

**  
Lee Sangyeon**

_Leaving the house now!_

_Be there in 5_

Jaehyun glances at his phone and shucks on his T-shirt. He’s looking forward to going to the gym today. He has a whole week of sitting on his ass at the office and the cream-filled waffles that Sunwoo has gotten him hooked on that he’s been itching to work off.

He steps out of his bedroom and makes sure his air conditioner is turned off before setting down the hallway where, to his surprise, he runs into Juyeon.

For how much Juyeon likes to be a morning person, he’s really isn’t one at his core, and that means on Sundays - his one designated sleep-in day - he’s basically comatose until around noon. Jaehyun is thus duly startled to find his roommate drinking a glass of water and staring out of the living room window when he walks by.

“Juyeon? You’re up?”

Juyeon turns around, startled. “Oh! Yeah, I couldn’t sleep. I forgot to meditate last night so my brain kind of woke me up going a mile a minute with research to-dos.”

“Oh damn, that sucks,” Jaehyun says consolingly even though he’s struggling not to coo for some very odd reason. “I mean, now that you’re up, do you want to come to the gym with me and Sangyeon hyung?”

Juyeon’s eyes light up. “Actually, yeah I’d love to! Wait, are you heading out right now though?”

Jaehyun nods. “Hyung’s downstairs already, I’m technically a minute behind,” he chuckles.

“Ah okay, I’ll meet you guys downstairs? I’ll be quick, I just want to change into some shorts.”

“Sure, take your time, I don’t think hyung will care.”

Juyeon grins. “Thanks! Okay b-r-b!”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes fondly at his roommate - bachelor’s in Political Science and Philosophy and Master’s in Literature and all - with his proclivity for verbalising internet abbreviations. Sangyeon is unsurprisingly completely unruffled by the prospect of waiting a few extra minutes for Juyeon, and when Jaehyun gets downstairs, the two of them chat languidly about Sangyeon’s recent photography gig.

“Do you think you’ll stick with fashion photography?” Jaehyun asks curiously as he nudges his toe along a crack in the pavement.

Beside him, Sangyeon fiddles with his headband. “Mm probably not in the long run,” he hums thoughtfully. “I really like it cause it gives me a chance to work with people that I wouldn’t have if I took a photojournalism job, but I don’t think I want to stay in fashion specifically.”

He smiles and looks up, something hopeful and soft gleaming in his eyes under the summer morning sun. “Honestly, my real crazy dream is to have my own exhibition some day for pieces I take of people who look like me and who have lives like mine. Something for the community I guess.”

Jaehyun’s lips curl unwittingly upwards, and he has to shove down the vicious urge to throw his arms around Sangyeon. He settles, instead, for reaching out to grab Sangyeon’s hand and squeezing, hesitantly at first and then firmly when Sangyeon squeezes back.

“That sounds so great,” Jaehyun says, trying to convey just how much he means it through fingers and gaze alone. “Really, I think that would be amazing and I have complete faith in you.”

Sangyeon grins ruefully back, handsome and optimistic, but before he can say anything, the front door of the building is bursting open.

“Hey!” Juyeon calls cheerfully. “Sorry I took a while, I couldn’t find any clean socks.”

“What is this, university?” Sangyeon scrunches his nose. “You’re a grown man — buy more socks, Juyeonie.”

“Yes hyung, sorry hyung,” Juyeon chants dutifully, although he throws Jaehyun a playful eye-roll over their friend’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go let’s go, I’ve blocked out an hour and fifteen minutes for this in my schedule and then it’s back to the library.”

He wheedles and tugs on their arms like an overeager puppy half the way there, eliciting fond laughter from Jaehyun and Sangyeon as they let themselves be swept along by Juyeon.

It’s a fifteen minute walk from the apartment building to Yonsei’s gym, but the three of them make it in ten with Juyeon’s overly-peppy _warm up jog, hyung!_ By the time they get there, Jaehyun is covered in a light sheen of sweat, and Juyeon’s turning red at his hairline.

Sangyeon gives them one look and bursts out laughing. “God, you guys have shit stamina,” he teases. “Let’s do cardio today, since Jaehyunie wants to burn some calories and Juyeon’s muscles have probably atrophied from being sedentary for the last month.”

Juyeon squawks in indignation, but follows along anyway, used to the way Sangyeon usually dictates workouts. To be fair though, Jaehyun thinks with a grimace as he steps onto the treadmill, out of anyone, Sangyeon knows what he’s doing at the gym.

And so begins a gruelling cardio circuit for the three of them, punctuated by a rotation between treadmill, rope skipping and a painful combination of squat jumps, burpees and crunches that have Jaehyun and Juyeon panting for breath.

“Mercy,” Juyeon gasps around half an hour in. “Hyung, I think I can taste my lungs.”

He collapses onto the ground, limbs akimbo and face streaming with sweat. Sangyeon chuckles, slightly out of breath, as he leans over to peer into Juyeon’s face. Jaehyun takes the well-timed diversion of Sangyeon’s attention to fall back and lean against the wall himself, eyeing the scene before him with as much amusement as he can muster in this state.

“You’re fine, get up,” Sangyeon cajoles Juyeon.

“No no, seriously, I have a whole lung in my mouth. The right one. It tastes like blood and pâté,” Juyeon rambles weakly. “I think I need—”

“Uh, Juyeon-ssi?”

The three of them look up to see a startlingly handsome man in a workout tank top and shorts standing awkwardly in their periphery.

Juyeon bolts upright. “Hey! I didn’t- _ow_ , head rush,” he groans, grabbing his forehead. “Jesus, sorry, Sungmin-ssi right?”

He stands, then sways and Jaehyun rushes forward to give him someone to lean on but the man - Sungmin - is already there, grabbing Juyeon gently by the elbow.

“Woah! Here, lean on- yeah, you’re okay,” Sungmin says kindly. “I didn’t mean to startle you, I just saw you from by the weights and wanted to come say hi.”

Juyeon smiles, finally steady on his feet. “Thanks for that, hi! It’s so good to see you,” he says genuinely.

Sungmin smiles, and Jaehyun watches dispassionately as the man scratches his elbow nervously.

“Hey,” he smiles, and _is that a blush forming on the guy’s face?_ Jaehyun couldn’t be sure, but it definitely looks like one. “It’s been a while, huh? I think the last time I saw you was—” He cuts off abruptly, and his eyes dart almost nervously to Jaehyun before settling on Sangyeon. “Was at the club meeting, before summer,” he says in a slightly hushed voice.

“Right, right! Wow, can’t believe the autumn semester’s gonna be starting soon,” Juyeon marvels.

“Totally! So soon! Yeah.”

Jaehyun would laugh at Sungmin’s nervousness if it didn’t confuse him so much. The newcomer goes on, “I actually- well, I uh, I wanted to see if you were free for dinner? Sometime soon? I meant to ask at the last meeting but then you got called away and then summer- sorry, so _dinner?”_ The last part is said a little desperately.

Juyeon’s eyes go wide before a broad beam breaks out onto his face. “Oh, like- wait, like a date?”

Sungmin’s gaze flickers briefly to Sangyeon - who looks endlessly amused - and Jaehyun before he blushes and nods. “Yeah, if you’re into it?”

Juyeon grins. “Definitely into it,” he assures. “You have me on Kakao right? Text me when! I’m kind of swamped these next couple weeks but I can make time.”

The two men grin at each other dopily for a moment before Sungmin nods and mumbles something like _will do absolutely yeah_ , then claps Juyeon on the bicep before excusing himself back to his buddy by the weights.

When he’s out of earshot, Sangyeon nudges Juyeon suggestively in the ribs.

“Wow, first time at the gym in months and you get asked out? Pretty people privilege,” Sangyeon sniffs faux-irritably. It makes Juyeon laugh and shove him lightly.

“Stop that, you’re pretty people too,” Juyeon says earnestly between laughs. He looks so happy, eyes so unbearably bright, that the odd little knot that had been tightening steadily in Jaehyun’s chest loosens a little.

“He seemed nice,” he tries to say supportively — because that’s what friends do, right? They’re supportive and excited for each other when attractive gym hunks ask them out on dinner dates. It comes out limp and awkward anyway.

“How do you guys know each other?” Sangyeon after chugging down a few gulps of water.

“Oh, I’m on the exec board of Cometogether,” Juyeon responds. “It’s the LGBT club on campus,” he clarifies for Jaehyun’s benefit because Sangyeon is already nodding like he knows.

“That’s—”

Just then, an awful trilling sound blares from Juyeon’s pocket. Sangyeon and Jaehyun both flinch backwards. “Oops, sorry! That’s my timer, I gotta start heading back if I’m going to make it to the library on schedule,” Juyeon says sheepishly. “Do you guys wanna come?”

Sangyeon and Jaehyun exchange a look that consists of mostly Jaehyun pulling out his best _please spare me I am unworthy_ look and Sangyeon rolling his eyes. “Sure,” he says for the both of them. “I guess we did get a lot done today.”

Jaehyun and Juyeon high five like teenagers, whooping and hollering as they pack up the equipment they’ve been using while Sangyeon watches on like a benevolent, attractive young dad.

Outside, the sun is beating down on the pavement with a remarkable lack of consideration for the fact that the three of them are all sweaty and a little dehydrated. It’s definitely the heat, Jaehyun reasons, that’s making him space out. His eyes drift aimlessly across the faceless people enjoying the good weather while Juyeon and Sangyeon chatter happily beside him. It’s _definitely_ the heat and not—

“Jaehyun? You alright?”

Sangyeon touches a warm hand to Jaehyun’s sweat-soaked back and Jaehyun has to fight back a grimace for more than one reason.

“Oh! Yeah, I’m fine,” he says quickly. Juyeon peers at him from around Sangyeon, eyebrows furrowed, and Jaehyun feels an odd pang in his chest. “Fine! Just- just…” he trails off, looking nervously around them.

“Just looking for this waffle place!” he exclaims, relieved. “And look, there it is!”

Sangyeon and Juyeon blink, nonplussed, at him.

“You know how Sunwoo - you know Sunwoo, right? I’ve mentioned- of course I have, what am I saying? Sunwoo got me hooked on these cream waffle things - total deathtraps of sugar and butter but hey, life is short, eat the waffle - and ta-da! Waffles!” Jaehyun sounds a little maniacal even to his own ears, but his friends gamely look over at what he’s gesticulating to.

“That’s the place Sunwoo brought you to?” Juyeon asks curiously.

“Well…” Jaehyun cringes. “Not quite. But! A waffle is a waffle, right? We should go in there. Because I was looking for this cafe just now. And not spacing out, I would _never_ space out.”

Sangyeon hides a chuckle in a fake-sounding cough, but slings an arm around Juyeon and Jaehyun anyway. “Great, sugar after a workout,” he says ironically as he leads them towards the cafe entrance.

They’re standing in line when Juyeon begins to fidget and check his phone.

“You have to go?” Sangyeon asks, ever perceptive.

Juyeon makes a face and glances forlornly at Jaehyun. “Yeah, I don’t- ugh, sorry hyung, I really want to stick to my schedule today but I know you were excited about—”

“Juyeonie, it’s fine,” Jaehyun interrupts with a huff of laughter. “Seriously, it’s a _waffle._ We can come another time.”

“You guys should stay though! Don’t let me ruin your fun!” Juyeon says earnestly as he pulls headphones out of his pocket. “Seriously! Send me pics, okay? Don’t forget!”

And then he’s gone, and Sangyeon and Jaehyun are looking at the space he once occupied, endeared and more than a little amused.

“Next!”

Jaehyun orders a chocolate chip cream waffle for himself and Sangyeon gets one with apple jam and vanilla cream, and in no time, they’re taking a seat on a couple of the cafe’s worn wooden chairs.

“So,” Sangyeon says conversationally as soon as they sit. “What was that just now?”

Waffle halfway to his mouth, Jaehyun freezes and looks around bewilderedly. “What?”

“What was your whole…deer-in-headlights thing just now?” Sangyeon sounds entertained as he takes his own bite. “This is good by the way.”

Jaehyun bites down and chews to buy himself a little time, but Sangyeon seems patient, waiting with a chin propped up on his hand and eyes dancing with mirth.

Finally, Jaehyun groans. “Ugh, it was nothing, okay?” He shoves another bite wretchedly into his mouth. There’s something strange and uncomfortable rising in his chest that feels suffocating and overwhelming all at once. It reminds Jaehyun of being seven when he’d dived to the bottom of the river on a dare, and only halfway through kicking back up towards the surface had he realised he might not make it.

It had been awful and unpleasant and Jaehyun hadn’t swam once the rest of the summer.

Across him, Sangyeon’s eyes soften.

“Look,” he says gently, putting his waffle down and wiping his fingers. “I know that this stuff is new for you. We all do, and we don’t think you’re a _bad_ person just because you don’t understand it yet. I mean, your circumstances are so different from ours, we’ve all had years to live these lives. Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

At Sangyeon’s coaxing, Jaehyun unclenches his jaw that had been masticating his food with a single-minded focus. It’s tasteless as it slides down his throat, and there’s a tightness there that Jaehyun can’t explain.

“I…” he trails off. “I just- fuck, this is so fucked, I just didn’t realise Juyeon was gay. That’s all. And it’s not- it’s not like I _mind!_ I’m not fucking-” he lowers his voice, “-I’m not _homophobic_ , I don’t care, I just feel…I don't know. Confused? Fuck.” Jaehyun groans. “I’m such a dirtbag.”

He runs a hand through his hair agitatedly and Sangyeon catches his hand.

“Don’t call yourself names,” he reprimands softly. Calloused thumbs rub soothing circles against his skin, and Sangyeon asks quietly, “What do you think you’re confused about?”

Jaehyun stares helplessly at his hands in Sangyeon’s, noting absently that their hands are a similar size.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles, still not meeting Sangyeon’s eyes. “I guess…I guess I thought people who were gay or- y’know, LGBT, all looked a certain way. And I _know_ you can’t look gay or whatever but Juyeon just…doesn’t. And I guess I feel kind of stupid for not realising and also confused.”

Sangyeon nods pensively. “That’s fair. I think that’s one of the hardest lessons to learn, is that anyone really could be anything. It’s part of this whole idea that we’ve been sold that heterosexuality and being cisgender is the norm, so anyone who doesn’t fall under those categories _must_ have some physical markers that denote their deviation, y’know?”

Jaehyun nods, so Sangyeon continues, “And yeah, someone who’s, let’s say, more comfortable with their gender expression and dresses in a gender non-conforming way may be more likely to be fluid with their sexuality too, but it’s not definite! It’s just hard when you’ve been told one thing all your life, only to be confronted with another now. You’re trying, though, which is what really matters.”

The look he gets from Jaehyun must be terribly downtrodden because Sangyeon adds with a laugh, “And you’re doing really well! Seriously. You ask questions, you listen, you’re thoughtful. It’s okay not to know everything at once.”

Sangyeon releases their hands to take another bite of his waffle, nudging Jaehyun’s plate closer to him with his elbow. “Eat,” he reminds.

Jaehyun complies and chews slowly, trying to sort through the convoluted mess in his head. Suddenly, Sangyeon twitches a little, as if a thought has just come to him.

“For the record, by the way, Juyeon isn’t gay. He’s not huge on labels but identifies most closely with pansexuality,” Sangyeon notes as he munches.

Jaehyun groans. “See? I couldn’t even get that right, _god_ , I just assumed you’re either gay or straight and _erased a million and one_ —”

“Jaehyun!”

“What.” Jaehyun intones flatly. “Don’t try and make me feel better hyung, you don’t even know how-” he flounders for a moment, “-how _eurgh_ I felt when that kid came to ask Juyeonie out. Oh my god, I think I’m- what if I’m a homoph—”

“ _Stop,_ ” Sangyeon interrupts. “You’re not. I’ve never seen you react this way to Kevin and Jacob and they are so flagrantly in love, it makes _me_ sick sometimes. Besides, did it ever occur to you that you might just be jealous?”

Jaehyun blinks.

“Huh?” he asks intelligently.

Sangyeon huffs. “Jealous. Maybe you didn’t like it when Sungmin came over cause you have f—”

In the distant corner of his head, Jaehyun thinks he hears something that sounds like the neurological version of alarm bells ringing the warning for an incoming invasion. Hurriedly, he says, “No no, I’m straight.”

Sangyeon makes a face. “Ew.”

Jaehyun’s face falls, and he bursts out laughing. “I’m kidding! Kidding kidding, Jesus, you looked like I just diagnosed you with smallpox or something.”

“Hyung,” Jaehyun whines. “I don’t know how you can laugh when I’m having a crisis of moral character.”

“You are _not_ , oh my god, so dramatic! Look, so you had a brief moment of feeling weird — now that you know Juyeon isn’t straight, do you see him differently? Like him less? Feel weird around him?”

Jaehyun balks. “ _No_ , of course not, I would never—”

“See? There! Problem solved, c’est fini, the end,” Sangyeon crows. “Gender and sexuality are complicated, and you’re learning a lot very fast. Chanhee told us a little about what it was like in Daegu, and that’s a way bigger city than Uiseong-eup. You are doing _fine._ ”

Then, like an afterthought, Sangyeon frowns and adds, “Speaking of which, Chanhee’s gay too.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes. “Well _yeah_ , I figured—” He clamps a hand over his mouth. “Fuck,” he sighs. “Sorry, you _literally_ just told me no one can look gay, and here I am—”

“No no,” Sangyeon interrupts mildly. “It’s okay, Chanhee’s, like, a beacon with a signal beam that projects his homosexuality into the stratosphere so all nearby queer people know he’s arrived. You can’t look not-gay, but Chanhee definitely looks gay.”

Jaehyun’s eyes are wild and confused as he stares back at Sangyeon who only laughs. “Ah forget it, I’m getting too entrenched in LGBT lore. Don’t worry about it, just remember — never assume someone can’t be queer just cause of the way they look. Those gays, they’ll get ya when you least expect it!” He pumps his arm in a classic _dang nabbit!_ gesture from a 90’s cartoon.

Jaehyun laughs warily. “Right. That makes sense.” He lets Sangyeon ruffle his no longer sweaty hair fondly.

“You’re fine, stop stressing,” he pokes. “That cute waitress girl has been looking over at our table every few minutes by the way,” he teases. “You should get her Kakao contact.”

Jaehyun makes a face and polishes off his waffle. “Who?”

“The girl who served us? The cute one?”

Jaehyun shrugs. “Didn’t notice.” Sangyeon gives him a weird look so he goes on, “And anyway, I’m not really looking to date. C’mon, let’s go, I want to shower before the gym smell embeds itself into my pores.”

“Gross,” Sangyeon comments as he, too, gets up. They walk past the counter when Jaehyun’s attention gets caught on something.

“Hey wait up,” he calls. “Can I have a menu please?” The girl behind the counter hands him a pink laminated sheet, and Jaehyun waves it in Sangyeon’s face. “Which one do you think Juyeonie would like?”

He peers discerningly at the menu as Sangyeon come ambling back leisurely. “Maybe the one with strawberries? Or do you think the mocha flavoured one?” Jaehyun asks.

Sangyeon’s elbow is digging into his side, nudging erratically once, then twice, before Jaehyun finally looks up crossly. “What?”

Sangyeon stares at him, blinking confusedly, then squints. Jaehyun frowns and is about to repeat his question when Sangyeon’s brow clears.

“Forget it,” he says, and if Jaehyun isn’t mistaken, there’s a hint of a smirk pulling at his friend’s red mouth. “Mocha sounds good.”

Jaehyun’s attention turns back to the menu and he re-reads the toppings on the mocha waffle before nodding. “Yeah, I think so too,” he says. “Can I get the mocha waffle in a to-go box please?”

The waitress behind the counter looks strangely flushed but she nods and quickly taps out his order into the machine.

“I’m excited to see what he thinks,” Jaehyun says as he sways on the ball of his feet. “He’s been so stressed you know, I was really getting kind of worried, but I think gymming was a good idea.”

Sangyeon hums noncommittally beside him, still looking for all intents and purposes like he’s hiding a smile. Jaehyun is about to ask what he’s laughing at when the waitress asks him for his card.

“Thanks!” he smiles pleasantly at her after she hands it back to him along with the waffle. He’s grateful it’s a seemingly slow day in the shop, given that there are only a couple other patrons sitting around and no other orders pending behind the till.

The waitress smiles back, her eyes pretty and dark, but Jaehyun is distracted by the sight of the waffle nestled perfectly in a paper wedge inside his takeaway box.

“Nice, this is great,” he says, more to the waffle than to her.

“Enjoy!” Her voice is upbeat, and Jaehyun gives her a distracted nod before turning to head out with Sangyeon trailing a couple steps behind him.

In the reflection of the glass door, he can definitely see his friend biting back chuckles, but city-folk have bizarre senses of humour sometimes Jaehyun has learned. It doesn’t matter much, not when he’s eager thinking about heading home to refrigerate the waffle before the cream melts under the summer heat.  
  


* * *  
  


Jaehyun is fourteen when his older sister asks their parents over Tuesday morning breakfast what they would do if Jiwoo or Jaehyun were gay.

Jaehyun doesn’t really know why she’s asking them - because it’s not like either of them would _ever_ be gay - but he sits and watches anyway as his father sets his chopsticks down.

“Are you?” he asks very gravely.

Jaehyun quickly shakes his head, and Jiwoo shrugs. “No, but what if one of us was? What would you do?” she pushes.

Jaehyun’s mother bites her bottom lip and looks off into the distance briefly. When she opens her mouth to speak, her voice is careful and deeply reserved.

“We would…” She trails off, before starting again. “Your father and I have a lot of sympathy for people who are-” here, she waves her hand vaguely in the air, as if gesturing to an unnameable phantom “-you know. But it would break our hearts, Jiwoo-ya.”

Beside him, Jaehyun’s sister stiffens. Her sixteen year old face grows pinched and frustrated. “Why? You know it’s natural right? Like, no one chooses to be gay or bi or whatever.”

Jaehyun’s father sighs and pinches his nose bridge. “We understand that _some_ people can’t help the hand they’re dealt in life, but your mother and I would hope that our own children aren’t—” he too, gesticulates loosely into the increasingly tense dining room. “It’s just not what we want for either of you. Besides, choice is a complex thing.”

Jiwoo scoffs. “You’re kidding right? What the hell does that mean?”

“Jiwoo! No swearing at the table,” Jaehyun’s mother cut in quickly, her face stricken. “It’s—”

Jaehyun’s father rubs a hand over his mouth as he stares vexedly at his daughter. “What do you want me to say, Jiwoo-ya? We all have choices in life, some harder than others. Human beings are created with animal desires and frivolous wants — do you know how your grandfather struggled with his own demons? The base addictions of gambling, daughter!”

Jaehyun watches with mute trepidation as his father grows more agitated, punctuating each sentence with a slam of his hand on the dining table. “We all have choices, to give in to our lower selves or to resist! This is the meaning of society and obligation!”

Jiwoo’s lip curls back in disgust, and Jaehyun’s hands suddenly grow clammy with apprehension. There’s something foreign about the strain in the room, somewhat unlike all the other times Jiwoo had argued with their parents (and this is Jiwoo alone, because Jaehyun is a good son who doesn’t talk back). Something about it tastes like disappointment and it rolls in waves off of Jiwoo’s slight frame as she rises from the table.

“That’s the vilest thing I’ve ever heard. I guess you’re both lucky neither of your children have been dealt such a misfortune then,” she scoffs. “I’m leaving for school early. Have a project to finish.”

The front door slams shut behind her, and Jaehyun’s parents sigh. Jaehyun takes a bite of rice.

It goes slow and dry down his throat.  
  


* * *  
  


For how well Juyeon and Jaehyun live together, of course, arguments are bound to arise. Not even arguments, really — ‘tensions’ would be more apt, because the most notable thing about the way Juyeon seems to deal with conflict in his life is to _not_ , and this is something that takes Jaehyun weeks to notice.

The first thing that Jaehyun notices - and really, it’s a retroactive noticing because he certainly doesn’t pick up on it at the time - is the pursed lips. Just the minute straightening of Juyeon’s mouth into a stiff line, so unlike the softness that usually curls at its edges.

Jaehyun is stepping out into the common area on a Thursday morning, about to leave for work when he notices that the sink is full of unwashed mugs. As he pours the hot water Juyeon had thankfully already boiled into his travel thermos - it’s still only August, but the office building is kept cold enough that sometimes Jaehyun wants to bring hot tea to work _along_ with the iced coffee he picks up on the way - Jaehyun peers curiously at the pile of crockery.

It certainly looks like all of Juyeon’s mugs — Jaehyun has a grand total of two (one plain white from Ikea and another one with the Marvel Cinematic Universe printed on the front), whereas Juyeon has - he counts - definitely more than eight, all in sundry designs and colours.

“Juyeon-ah!” he calls, still looking at the sink. He hears the bathroom door open and turns to see Juyeon pop his head out, a toothbrush hanging from his mouth.

“Wass’ah, hy’ng?” he mumbles around it before pulling it out.

“Wash your mugs when you get a chance, yeah? They’re piling up in the sink.”

A few weeks later, Jaehyun will think back to this moment and remember how Juyeon’s mouth had looked under the toothpaste foam. He’ll realise it was something pinched and irritated, but right now, Jaehyun is about to head out for work and still a little sleepy himself so it completely passes him by. It looks like Juyeon’s only tightening his lips around the toothbrush to keep all the foam in anyway.

“I’ll see you later,” he calls when Juyeon doesn’t verbally respond. “Want me to grab you one of those cream-waffle things on the way home?”

Juyeon softens, and the stiffness around his lips smooths out into a gentle smile.

“Y’rs plea’the,” he garbles. Jaehyun grins and waves, then closes the front door behind him.

It’s not until a random Tuesday the following week, when they’re packing up their takeout after dinner, that Jaehyun notices it again. The two of them are stuffed to the brim with pizza as they clean, and Jaehyun hands Juyeon the cardboard boxes.

“Throw that away will you?” he asks as he begins gathering up their plates.

“Hyung look, swish!” Juyeon calls as the tosses the wadded up ball of paper towel at the bin. It hits the lid with a sad little _fwap_ before tumbling onto the floor. “Well, it would’ve landed if the lid hadn’t been on,” Juyeon grumbles.

“Of course,” Jaehyun teases. “You’re such a jock, Juyeonie.”

He gathers the plates along with their utensils, then looks up surprisedly when he doesn’t get a response. “Juyeon?”

Juyeon is stuffing the boxes back into the takeout bag to bring out later, a stiff set to his posture, and looks up with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Sorry, spaced out.”

Jaehyun cocks his head but doesn’t comment on the sudden influx of tension in the room.

“I should go, I need to make notes on this reading,” Juyeon says quietly.

“Oh, yeah of course,” Jaehyun says blankly. He leans forward to look carefully at Juyeon. “You okay though?”

Juyeon nods tersely but doesn’t say anything else and sidles right past him. The sight of his retreating back makes something nervous and heavy settles in Jaehyun’s gut.

A week or so later, once again the mugs have re-piled up in their sink. Jaehyun chooses not to say anything this time because he’s seen the tired pull around Juyeon’s eyes and has heard him coming home late night after night from the library. Instead, he tugs on a pair of washing gloves and sets about washing them himself so that Juyeon doesn’t have to worry about them when he gets home.

Just as he’s finishing drying the last one, the front door swings open. Juyeon trudges in, his backpack and arms clearly laden with books.

“Hey,” Jaehyun greets. He’s about to say more when he sees Juyeon’s dark circles, and decides against it. The poor thing looks like he’s about to collapse from exhaustion, and Jaehyun knows he himself usually has no interest in talking when he’s that tired.

“‘Sup,” Juyeon says. The tone of his voice makes Jaehyun’s eyes flicker upwards to his face in surprise. There’s a stony expression marring Juyeon’s normally serene features, and it makes Jaehyun frown a little in confusion.

“You alright?” he asks concernedly.

Juyeon bites the inside of his cheek as he surveys the pile of washed mugs in the drying rack. Tensely, he asks, “Did you wash my mugs?”

Jaehyun balks. “Yeah…? Is that- did you not want me to?”

“No, just—” Juyeon huffs out a strung out breath. “Were you making a point?”

Jaehyun’s eyes flicker over Juyeon’s face, the rigid set of his shoulders and the almost white-knuckled grip he has on his books. Ordinarily, he might get annoyed at someone interrogating him for doing them a favour, but this seems deeper somehow.

“No,” he says slowly. “Exactly what kind of point do you think I would hypothetically make?”

Juyeon steps fully into the flat and swings his backpack onto one of the barstools. It makes a dull thumping noise as it falls heavily against the metal and Jaehyun winces at the sound.

“I don’t know, hyung,” Juyeon bites out, pushing his hair out of his face. He hasn’t been styling it recently, and only now does Jaehyun notice that it looks a little unwashed as it hangs into his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been a shit roommate, okay, and I _know_ I’ve let the dishes pile up, but I’m not hard of hearing, I _heard_ you ask me to wash my mugs last week so you didn’t have to just go and—”

“Woah, woah, woah!” Jaehyun says with his hands up. He steps around the kitchen island to come to stand in front of Juyeon, who’s eyeing him warily now that he’s deflated a little from his rant. “Juyeon-ah, I just saw the dishes and I know you’ve been busy so I washed them. I had some spare time on my hands and didn’t mind doing it. That’s all.”

Juyeon looks at him carefully for a second before all the hot air seems to escape him and he slumps onto one of the chairs. “Fuck. Fuck, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you, hyung. I’ve just been having such a shit time of it all.”

Jaehyun’s brows furrow and he grabs one of the barstools to sit himself next to his roommate. “What’s going on? Is it school stress or something else?”

Juyeon pinches his nose bridge and squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t know, that and, like, everything else it feels like. I’m struggling to find the right resources I need so I might have to do a bunch of translations myself even though my German really isn’t up to par to be translating primary sources, my bank won’t send me my new debit card and I just— _everything_.”

Jaehyun frowns and reaches over to touch a hand to Juyeon’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. I don’t really know anything about research but if you want, I’m pretty free this weekend. I can come to the library and help you look through stuff, or sift through the things you’ve already found, whatever you need.”

Juyeon smiles, and it’s weak but there, the curl of his lips that reaches his tired gaze. “Thanks,” he murmurs. “I appreciate that a lot, I might- I mean, I don’t know, I’m talking to my advisor tomorrow after my first-year seminar so maybe she’ll have some insight.”

He chuckles a little self-deprecatingly before scratching his neck. “Thanks for, uh, de-escalating. I shouldn’t have gotten so upset over nothing, I just…don’t do great with confrontation.”

Jaehyun squints at Juyeon. “What do you mean?”

Juyeon shrugs sheepishly. “I don’t know. I get, like, all nervous about telling people when I’m upset at them so I don’t until I either can’t hold it in anymore and it blows up in my face or I cut them out of my life.” He grimaces. “And before you say that’s a really alarming way to deal with things, I already know that.”

This elicits a guarded chuckle from Jaehyun. “That _is_ alarming.” Juyeon knocks his knee into Jaehyun’s with a huff. “Why do you think that is?”

For a moment, Juyeon looks caught off guard, his eyes widening in surprise. Then his expression grows contemplative and he picks at his Cupid’s bow as he says, “It’s…a combination of things I think. Mostly it’s cause I have this idea that no one really thinks changing for another person is worth it, y’know? Like, if I tell them they have this habit that upsets me, why would they change for _me?_ They wouldn’t, right?”

He doesn’t actually wait for a response before powering ahead. “So unless I swallow it and get over my frustration, if I tell them, the relationship falls apart because it’s easier for them to leave than to accommodate me. Or if they do change, they’ll resent me for it, and then the relationship falls apart anyway.”

He looks up then to meet Jaehyun’s eyes. “It just feels like an easier thing to do. I’ve rationalised it as _if I’m actually compatible platonically with someone, they won’t do things that upset me, and if they do, then we’re not compatible_. If the thing isn’t a big deal, I’ll get over it, and if I can’t, then we weren’t meant to be friends. Easy, right?” he asks with a wry, regretful twist of his mouth.

Jaehyun scrunches up his nose. “No, what? That’s- what? So you just drop people without giving them a chance to even know why you’re upset at them?”

Juyeon huffs and rolls his eyes. “I mean, when you put it like _that_ , it sounds bad, but you know. Life’s ephemeral and all that! I doubt they really care, right? I don’t think anyone’s lying in bed right now lamenting over the fact that we stopped hanging out.”

“But that’s not fair! You didn’t even give them a little bit of faith! Not to mention the fact that you think you’re not worth changing for is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Jaehyun argues. “Do you really think so little of yourself?”

“No, it’s not a self-worth thing, it’s—”

“It clearly is.”

“Okay, it’s _kind_ of a self-worth thing, but also it’s a realistic thing! A pragmatic thing!” Juyeon cries. “I just- sometimes I don’t think anyone’s actually capable of change, I guess.”

Jaehyun looks expressionlessly back at him. “Oh so it’s a self-worth thing _and_ an underestimating your friends thing,” he accuses tonelessly. “You think so little of your friends that you don’t think they are intellectually and emotionally capable of change.”

Juyeon’s mouth falls open. “No! I mean, well- no, no! I don’t think they’re not _smart_ enough to change or that they don’t have the emotional capacity to change, I just don’t think they’d _want_ to.”

Jaehyun’s pale hand shoots out to catch Juyeon’s waving wrist that is gesticulating wildly to punctuate his sentences. He grabs and pulls him close, fixing him with a firm stare.

“Juyeon. Juyeonie. That’s so unbelievably absurd, I don’t even know what to say. You should tell people they’re upsetting you because your feelings matter and you deserve to be honest with others,” he says with feeling. “Just cause someone might hypothetically leave or not leave doesn’t mean you have to _shield_ them from the truth.”

“Yes but why does it matter? If I can just swallow it down anyway or decide I don’t want to stay friends, isn’t that kind of the same?”

“No.” Jaehyun tries not to sound as indignant as he feels. “No, it’s not. How can you value your truth so little? If I said the same thing to you, if I told you I was hiding stuff from you because I think my feelings don’t matter, wouldn’t you be upset? To know that I thought so little of you as a friend and so little of myself as a person?”

Juyeon blinks, his gaze suddenly forlorn and regretful. “Hyung, no I…” he trails off and heaves a deep breath. “Fuck. Look, I know you’re right, I do. I guess I was just, I dunno. Yeah. It’s a self-worth thing.” He chuckles joylessly.

“But you’re right. When you say it like that, it sounds- yeah. I’d be upset if I found out you thought so little of yourself too. _And_ it’s not fair to you or my other friends, so I’m sorry.”

Jaehyun exhales and releases Juyeon’s hand, feels the ugly lump of upset in his chest dissipate. He leans his elbow against the counter and props his chin up on his palm to smile dryly at his roommate. “You’re forgiven. So? I’m guessing what precipitated this whole thing is you being upset at someone, and I’m going to hazard another wild guess and say it’s me you’re upset at.”

Juyeon grimaces and shies away, hiding his face behind two enormous hands. He groans, long and low, into them before unearthing himself.

“Yeah,” he admits quietly. Guiltily, like he doesn’t think he has the right to be upset.

“Juyeon-ah.” Juyeon looks up. “I’m not going to discount your feelings and I’m not going to suddenly decide I don’t want to be friends, or any number of ridiculous things you think I might do if you tell me what’s wrong. I just want to know,” Jaehyun says softly.

The look he gets is doubtful and wary, but Juyeon sighs anyway like he’s resigned to it.

“I…it really…god, this is so fucking stupid but it kind of bothers me when you call me a jock,” Juyeon cringes. “It’s so dumb, and I know that’s not even a mean thing to say and you’ve only done it a few times, hyung, so I’m not, like, mad at you or anything but there’s this guy in my programme who always calls me a jock to imply I’m not—”

“ _Juyeonie_.”

Juyeon looks like a deer in headlights. “…Yeah?”

“It’s _okay_ , seriously. It’s not dumb, you’re allowed to not like being called certain things — you don’t have to caveat your grievance, Jesus. I’m sorry I called you a jock all those times, I didn’t know it was upsetting and I won’t do it again.” Jaehyun smiles comfortingly.

There’s a minute pause where Juyeon seems to be holding his breath so Jaehyun pokes him in the cheek. “See? That wasn’t so hard was it?” he teases gently. “I’m not mad, I’m not storming out of the flat. I feel a bit bad that I upset you, but now we can move on — assuming you accept my apology that is,” he jokes.

Juyeon’s eyes fly open with alarm. “Oh my god of course I do, it’s totally fine, I’m wasn’t even that upset,” he babbles. And then he stops and stares - or perhaps ‘watches’ would be the more apt term - at Jaehyun’s face, as if searching for a “psych!” or a suddenly malicious turn. When he doesn’t find it, a smile breaks over his face like waves lapping onto white sand shores.

“Oh. That was- not bad,” he admits with a bemused little grin. “Wow.”

Jaehyun grins back and taps him on the nose this time. “Told ya,” he nudges. “Should always listen to your hyung.”

Juyeon scoffs. “Yeah, uh huh, okay.” Lighthearted once more, but perhaps still feeling a little emotionally cagey, he stands up and moves to scoop up his books. “Alright, as fun as this was, I should go do some more reading before I inevitably pass out.”

He reaches to grab his backpack from the stool by Jaehyun, only to have the bag suddenly whisked away from him to get clasped protectively in Jaehyun’s arms.

“Nope. No more studying, you look like a wire about to snap, bucko.”

Juyeon frowns. “I’m fine, seriously, and it’s not even that late—”

Jaehyun blows a raspberry. “No. You can either go to bed or watch a couple episodes of One Piece with me.”

He knows what the answer is before it even falls from Juyeon’s lips, can see it in the way Juyeon’s resolve crumbles on his face and frame, so he beams preemptively in victory. “Nice, the Straw Hats and Wanda are reaching Duke Dogstorm’s sanatorium in this one—”

“How do those words make an actual sentence?”

“—because they need to find out what happened to Zou and I’m going to pretend your pedestrian tastes in anime didn’t just sully my virginal ears—”

“Eurgh!”

“—so you’re going to sit down like a good boy and we are going to enjoy this very artistic and enjoyable episode of One Piece together like the adults we are.”

Jaehyun drags Juyeon to flop against the sofa, their shoulders crashing into each other as they snicker and giggle to themselves, the heavy load of books forgotten in the kitchen. The lamps in the living room cast warm arcs of light over them, and Juyeon lights a candle because he’s the kind of person who thinks about things like ambience.

An episode in, Jaehyun turns to Juyeon beside him. “Hey, so I kind of got the sense that you were upset at me earlier about the mugs and not just cause you were…” Jaehyun gesticulates in the direction of Juyeon’s face, “Y’know. Emotionally constipated or whatever.”

Juyeon flushes and pulls at his right earlobe sheepishly. “You’re not _technically_ wrong,” he mutters. “I guess, I dunno. Ugh, this is so dumb. It’s so fucking dumb oh my god.”

He groans and his hands twitch as if he’s fighting the urge to hide his face in them. “I was…maybe a little resentful that you were so comfortable telling me to fix a habit when I was going through the seven circles of Hell trying to do the same to you. And… _maybe_ I developed a martyr complex where I felt _briefly_ like if I was hiding stuff from you out of the ‘goodness of my heart’ that it was…callous of you not to do the same. Maybe.”

Jaehyun has to bite his bottom lip to keep it from quivering. As it is, Juyeon’s embarrassed glance upwards makes him want to shriek with laughter, so Jaehyun presses his lips together between his teeth to hold it in.

“Yep,” he affirms, albeit tremulously. “That’s- yep.”

“You’re laughing at me,” Juyeon accuses with a whine. “C’mon, I _prefaced_ it with ‘this is dumb’! You can’t laugh- _why are you laughing at me!”_

“I’m not, I’m not!” Jaehyun is aware he sounds a little hysterical with how hard he’s trying not to snicker.

“Fuck you, let’s just watch the next episode,” Juyeon grumbles.

There’s a hint of a smile on his face too, though, so Jaehyun doesn’t feel that bad when he turns his head away to let out a few gasps of laughter before Juyeon pokes him forcefully in the side.

“Ow!”

“ _Focus!”_

As the animation unfolds on their TV, tension melted and the smell of sage and sea salt permeates the room, Jaehyun finds himself loosening somehow, the way one does when returning home finally after a long trip away.

And then he realises with a jolt, that oh, this is what Seoul has become. A home. In this tucked away flat in Sinchon, beside Juyeon whose warmth is of the unwavering sort, like bedrock formed millennia ago in the depths of the ocean.

They’re sitting close, now, closer than they were before because Juyeon had inadvertently crowded Jaehyun against the sofa when he’d leaned in to poke him. They’re close enough that if Jaehyun breathes a little too deeply, his pinkie finger will touch Juyeon’s.

For the first time, however, Jaehyun doesn’t merely let their hands hover in each other’s periphery. For the first time, he scoots nearer still and lets their knees, their thighs, their shoulders touch, no longer a hair’s breadth away like every other time they’d watched movies or Juyeon’s nature documentaries together, but skin on skin, ivory on gold.

Juyeon doesn’t say anything but instead wordlessly moves in, like he’s been _waiting_ all this time for Jaehyun to touch him first. This way, Juyeon’s knuckles graze Jaehyun’s and stay there, light as dewdrops on morning petals. It feels like his chest is expanding and contracting all at once, some base reaction to this barely-there physical contact and Jaehyun—

Jaehyun finds that touching Juyeon feels like standing beneath summer rainfall in Uiseong-eup, simultaneously warm and thunderous as the drops beat against his skin, and light and freeing with the way he feels like he could scream and shout into rolling skies for the rest of time.

Luffy yells something incomprehensible on the screen, eliciting a small, husky laugh out of Juyeon.

The soundbite embeds itself into Jaehyun’s chest, nestles there with the feeling of rain and belonging, and then Jaehyun finds that right here, he is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should go without saying that Sangyeon is the best boy, my fav boy, the boy I would raze cities to the ground for. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! As always, your comments and kudos mean the world to me.
> 
> If you catch any spelling or grammatical errors, please let me know!
> 
> The next update will be on Sunday, 7th of March KST.
> 
> If you want to chat or get updates on my work, come find me on Twitter (link in profile)!
> 
> \- Anon


	3. III.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juyeon stops, visibly feeling the words in his mouth. “I think…I think you make sense in Seoul, too,” he says carefully, restrained but radiant somehow. “I think you make sense in Sinchon,” he adds, almost nervously. “Here, specifically.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, welcome back to chapter three! 
> 
> Trigger warnings for this chapter:
> 
> * Gender normative behaviour and some internalised homophobia from an OC. No slurs were used.
> 
> * Brief mention of a death of a parent many years ago, but it's not talked about in detail.
> 
> Small note: there is a non-binary character, and, as I mentioned in my note last time, Korean isn't a language with gendered pronouns. However, I used "they" to make the distinction, and also switched between noona and hyung for their honourifics. I couldn't find anything online about trans honourifics in Korean, so if you happen to know, please DM me or leave it in a comment!
> 
> This chapter is particularly Jaehyun-centric - a lot of this fic is about his growth as a person both within and outside of his relationships, so this chapter will have more on the latter. Nonetheless, I still hope you enjoy!

Jaehyun has decided that his relationship with Juyeon is a funny thing.

In a lot of ways, Juyeon is one of the few parts of the city that Jaehyun doesn’t have to work terribly hard to understand. They’re remarkably different, of course, in that Juyeon tends to listen more than he talks and moves through life with a measured grace that Jaehyun could never hope to achieve, and innumerable other ways, big and small.

Still, from the beginning, their friendship had come eerily naturally to Jaehyun. When he’s feeling chatty and wants to make someone laugh, Juyeon is always there, ready to put his book down or turn off his podcast to listen. When Jaehyun starts to get overwhelmed by the oppressive weight of Seoul, Juyeon always knows which long walking routes to take him on, and step by step, some of the pressure lifts into the bright August air with Juyeon by his side.

Even the fact that Jaehyun isn’t a morning person is complemented rather perfectly by the fact that Juyeon is, and he always has a cup of coffee or barley tea ready for when Jaehyun eventually emerges from his bedroom, sleep-rumpled and puffy-eyed.

Something about Juyeon reminds Jaehyun of home — of the people in their little town who had soft edges like the whisper of elm trees that sprawled across his county. He may be a city boy, a Seoulite through and through, but Juyeon feels like Uiseong-gun: air so crisp that it’s sharp in your lungs, easy manners and warm hospitality.

There are a number of things to love about Juyeon, for example. One, Jaehyun reflects, is the way he always knows exactly how much and how little to say. Jaehyun himself has trouble with running his mouth, has been called brash and irreverent at times, but Juyeon — Juyeon always seems to know. Underneath that bright-eyed, rambling intellectual exterior is a keen awareness of the people around him, like two fingers forever on a pulse point.

It is perhaps one of Jaehyun’s favourite things about him.

Jaehyun rises from his bed and rubs sleep from his eyes, wondering briefly if it’s odd to wake up thinking about one’s roommate.

As he tugs his sweatpants on, Jaehyun smiles and thinks of another favourite thing: the fact that Juyeon doesn’t dress like a city-person (which, yes, is a normative label and not everyone in Seoul dresses the same, _blah blah blah,_ Jaehyun rolls his eyes at himself). For the most part, Juyeon walks around in sweatpants and plain T-shirts like a 2010 Gap catalogue, and it looks so much like what everyone wore back home that Jaehyun can almost pretend that Seoul is full of _Juyeon_ s instead of _Chanhee_ s and that- that makes him feel less scared somehow.

So Juyeon, in many ways, is knowable. Close to Jaehyun’s heart, even, he thinks as his bedroom door swings open.

Except, of course, when Juyeon isn’t.

Because sometimes - and this is largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of Juyeon feeling like home, Jaehyun knows (he knows, okay?) - Juyeon baffles him. Deeply and intensely. Because how can someone who feels so familiar in a city full of the unknown with his sweatpants and plain T-shirts _also_ be someone who wears stuff like—

Like a wide V-neck fuzzy jumper in petal peach, with a delicate silver necklace laying at the golden column of his neck.

Jaehyun stops abruptly in his tracks when he sees, imminent bathroom trip forgotten as he stares at Juyeon sitting cross-legged on their sofa, reading.

His roommate looks up and smiles amicably at him, tucking a well-loved bookmark in between two pages before setting his paperback down.

“You’re up!” he says. “Busy—”

“What’re you wearing?”

Jaehyun doesn’t realise he’s blurted out the question until silence fills the room and Juyeon blinks at him. His roommate looks down and pulls a little shyly at his jumper.

“Oh, this?” he asks. “I got this a few weeks ago but it’s finally temperate enough to wear it today.” When Jaehyun doesn’t respond quickly enough, Juyeon asks uncertainly, “Uh…why?”

A stellar question, really. Gold stars all around for the person who can answer. Jaehyun swallows and leans, a little faint, against the kitchen counter.

“I- uh, I just didn’t know you wore stuff like-” he coughs, “-that. The necklace and the jumper.” He indicates vaguely at Juyeon’s shoulder area, which he belatedly realises is marked by pretty lines of collarbone and sun-smoothed skin.

(Freckles, too. Juyeon has freckles stippled across his neck and décolletage like constellations. Jaehyun hadn’t realised his roommate had freckles.

Something foreign prickles under Jaehyun’s skin.)

Juyeon’s eyebrows fly up in surprise. “Oh, I didn’t- huh.” One hand trails up to fiddle with a charm on his necklace, an ethereal and delicate little thing that makes Jaehyun’s face grow hot if he focuses on it for too long. “I didn’t realise you’d never seen me in this choker before. I usually wear it more,” he admits with a wry smile.

“That’s…cool.”

Jaehyun doesn’t know why he’s dragging this ordeal out any longer than he has to but for some reason, his feet refuse to move from where they’re cemented to the kitchen floor. Somehow, fixating on something concrete like pastel jumpers and pretty jewellery feels easier than addressing- well, whatever it is he’s avoiding.

“Do you not like my outfit?” Juyeon asks dryly, and though the question makes Jaehyun seize up with nervousness, his roommate’s pleasantly teasing expression balms it over.

“No I- I mean it’s- you look nice, I just…” he trails off ineffectually. If Juyeon were anyone else, he’d fill the silence with some meaningless diversion.

As it is, however, Juyeon only waits patiently, chin sat idly in one large palm.

Jaehyun sighs. “Nothing, it’s dumb. I’ve just never seen a guy wearing…pink. Or necklaces.”

Juyeon nods slowly, and his bottom lip juts out in thought the way Jaehyun has learned it does. “But you’ve seen Chanhee…?”

Jaehyun starts when realises he _has_ seen Chanhee, and in garb far more out-there than what Juyeon is wearing right now, but he quickly counters with, “Yeah but he’s- _y’know_. Like that. And you’re- not.”

Juyeon’s face breaks out into a grin then, and he shrugs. “Sometimes I’m not,” he concedes. “But sometimes I am. Depends on how I’m feeling that day, I guess.”

Jaehyun nods and picks at his lip. It’s a reasonable answer and one that’s difficult to refute, but his brain feels sluggish like cooled molasses, and the solution to his conundrum remains ever elusive. “And you can just- flip flop like that?” he asks.

He gets a subdued look of surprise in response. “Hyung, I think you’ll find that generally in life you can do whatever the hell you want,” Juyeon says mildly.

“Right, right, but you...” Jaehyun trails off. “I dunno, no one says anything? Like your colleagues or students n’ stuff?” he asks.

Juyeon wrinkles his nose. “Why would they do that?”

Jaehyun frowns and mimics his roommate’s expression. “Well. It’s...I mean, there are expectations? Right? You can’t just jump from one side of the spectrum to another just like that.” He’s suddenly doubtful. “Can you?”

Juyeon’s confused look evens out into something implacably blank, but Jaehyun’s certain he’s not imagining the knowing gleam he sees in his roommate’s dark eyes.

“Can’t you?”

Of course, Jaehyun knows the answer to his own question. _Gender and sexuality are fluid experiences_ echoes in the back of his mind, sounding like an odd amalgamation of Juyeon and Sangyeon’s voices. He knows this, he does. It’s just that, in a ridiculous way, Jaehyun had been holding onto Juyeon being something knowable - something like Jaehyun _himself_ \- but this? This is uncharted territory.

Because if Juyeon can wake up one day and accidentally steal Jaehyun’s sweatpants because their clothes are virtually indistinguishable, and then wake up the next day and be this sunbeam gilded _creature_ with all of those fucking collarbones and freckles and that red, red mouth, that sometimes kisses people who aren’t girls, then Jaehyun, too, could be—

Juyeon absent-mindedly runs his finger along the silver chain of his necklace, drawing Jaehyun’s eyes once more to the elegant dip of his throat. When Jaehyun doesn’t say anything, his roommate, tactful as ever, picks up his book again and makes a show of flipping to his page to give him a graceful exit out of the conversation.

It’s very polite, but it does little to stop the bewilderment from echoing around his skull all the way to the bathroom and back to bed again.  
  


* * *  
  


“Hello, and welcome back to Sotto Voce, the music podcast that takes you deep into the lives and work of some of the most influential artists in the country. I am your host Man Youngho…”

As he fades the intro music out, Jaehyun pops one side of his headphones off his head. Sunwoo is sitting beside him, head bobbing along to the chosen artist’s album with a lollipop in his mouth, one earbud in to listen to the music and one headphone pressed to his other ear to keep track of what’s going on in the studio.

Jaehyun taps him on the knee, and he immediately pulls his earbud out with a smile.

“What’s up? Need help with something?”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Nah, wanted to see if you needed anything from the break room.” Being an audio engineer itself at a podcasting network is pretty light work - it’s not like there are many things to keep track of once the mics are set up and the guest and Man Youngho are talking.

“A pear tea from the vending machine if you don’t mind,” Sunwoo grins. Jaehyun pokes him lightly on the forehead, which Sunwoo clearly takes as a ‘will do’ if his yelped “thanks!” is anything to go by.

In the break room, one of the script writers is sipping idly on a cup of coffee while scrolling through her laptop. She looks up when Jaehyun comes in and smiles at him.

“Hey Jaehyun-ssi, taking a break?”

He smiles back and busies himself with the snack machine. “Just grabbing something quick, Man PD-nim has the artist in the studio with him.”

“How are you liking working here?” It’s a question Jaehyun gets a lot, even though he’s coming up on three months at the network. All of his colleagues seem very invested in his wellbeing and, as Sunwoo had mentioned they would be numerous times, his future career interests.

“A lot, I’m really happy here actually,” he says as he leans back against one of the counters. “It’s really an honour to be working with Man PD-nim, I’ve been a fan of his work for years.”

Kim Yoori cocks her head. “Oh?” Her eyes are sharp and curious. “Any album in particular?”

It’s a test, Jaehyun can tell immediately, and the back of his neck prickles with adrenaline. Two months ago, something as direct and almost combative-seeming as this might’ve made him nervous and upset - _why are people in Seoul so god damn aggressive?_ he had complained to Juyeon one night after too many beers - but now, he’s used to the game.

“Ah, not an album actually but the film score he produced for the coming of age movie- god, what is it, ten years ago now?” He shakes his head, marvelling. “The score for _The House Finch_ was life-changing for me, I listened to it what felt like every day the year the movie came out,” Jaehyun murmurs, suddenly transported back to a time when every breath tasted like petrichor and his room smelled liked Jiwoo’s floral perfume.

He remembers the year the movie came out. He had been fourteen, much like the protagonist in the film, and Jiwoo had just had her first kiss at sixteen with a boy from class. Jaehyun remembers sitting on the wall outside of school as he waited for her, legs swinging and earphones digging into his skin, but the crescendo of the cello had been as beautiful as the sudden gust of wind that gathered up all the autumn leaves into the air.

Jiwoo had been there, not more than fifty metres away, talking shyly with a boy. Jaehyun’s interest in their interaction was half-hearted at best, but then—

Then they had kissed.

For a split second, the moment Hong Daehyun’s lips had touched Jiwoo’s, Jaehyun’s first instinct had been to flinch back and groan. He didn’t want to see his _sister_ getting kissed, of all things! But then, suddenly, in his ears someone had trailed their fingers over ivory keys and Jaehyun had been transported out of his body and mind into some liminal space of watching and observing.

He had seen Jiwoo, sixteen and lovely, with a blush the colour of his mother’s hibiscuses on her cheeks. He had seen Hong Daehyun, sixteen too, and perhaps a little bit in love with a girl whose frame was as slender and mesmerising as a willow tree.

Piano notes spilled fast and slow, duplets then triplets and cords and octaves and trills, and the situation Jaehyun found himself caught in was entirely incongruous because no teenage boy ever wants to see his sister having her first kiss and yet all Jaehyun could _really_ see was the very _moment_ two people came of age. 

It had been epiphanic, and Jaehyun — Jaehyun had wanted to work with music since.

He shakes himself now to clear the memory from his glazed over eyes. “The use of string instruments for Eunji’s melancholy, and then the piano score when she finally understood why her family was the way it was — they changed the way I saw music,” Jaehyun says slowly, like a man emerging from water.

Yoori looks at him, her gaze incisive and inquisitive all at once, before a smile breaks out onto her face. It makes her sharp features soften somehow, and Jaehyun physically relaxes in response.

“That’s a good answer,” she says with a grin. “You hold up well on the spot.”

Jaehyun snorts an unseemly sound. “Hardly, you don’t know how long it took to not want to die every time someone here asked me a question.”

Yoori laughs brightly and polishes off her coffee. “Fair,” she snickers. “You were so timid your first month here, we thought we’d scare you away for sure.”

As she runs the cup under the sink, she turns to him with a playful pull to her lips. “You’ve grown into the company well though. You’re an asset, and you learn fast. If you ever want to branch out, you should feel free to let one of us know.”

Jaehyun’s eyebrows fly up. “Branch out? What—?”

Yoori’s eyes flicker to the hallway leading to the studio. “Sunwoo-ssi’s mentioned what happened last year to you, right? With Man PD-nim using his composition in the boy group comeback?”

Jaehyun nods.

“If you want to try your hand at composing - and it definitely sounds like you’re invested in music in the same way, if nothing else - you should let PD-nim know. I’m sure he’d love to help or give you some guidance.” She finishes washing her hands and dries it on her pencil skirt that looks like it costs more than Jaehyun’s monthly rent.

“Be ambitious, Jaehyun-ssi,” she says with smile. “HR mentioned you aren’t sure if you’ll be in Seoul long-term, so that’s more reason than any to take all the chances you can get.”

She gives him a brisk but friendly nod before stepping out of the break room with her laptop in hand, high heels clicking energetically down the hallway.

When Jaehyun makes it back to the studio, Sunwoo makes grabby hands at the pear tea he spots in Jaehyun’s grip.

“You took long,” he says finally, after taking three long gulps.

Jaehyun shrugs. “Ran into Yoori-ssi,” he says, sitting down heavily and pulling his headphones half on. “Did I miss anything?”

“No, pretty standard stuff. They’re talking about the impact of classism on access to success in the industry — the usual shtick.”

Jaehyun chuckles when Sunwoo rolls his eyes. “It’s funny how aggressively anti-capitalist Man PD-nim is even though he’s- y’know.”

Sunwoo snickers. “I think he has it in his head that if he just donates enough money every month, he won’t be tainted by the sins of the free market.” He waves his hands in the air to punctuate his sentence, and Jaehyun has to valiantly bite down on his bottom lip when the guest artist looks over in surprise.

The way Sunwoo turns candy-apple red and ducks his head immediately is hilarious.

“Hey you busy after work?” Jaehyun asks. “I’m pojangmacha-hopping with friends - Jacob and Chanhee - if you wanna come.”

It comes as no surprise when the promise of cheap street food makes Sunwoo’s face light up.  
  


* * *

  
Jaehyun kicks his sneakers off, grimacing a little at the stepped in backs where he’d shoved his feet to run out just now to throw out the rubbish. He knows he needs to stop doing that, he does, because it ruins the structure of the shoes and he really has very little interest in buying new ones if these sneakers ever give way, but still. It’s hard.

Mornings are rough! He should be commended for getting up to do something as banal as take out the rubbish, let alone have to worry about something as pedestrian as _shoes_.

Jaehyun has just dropped his keys in the bowl by the door when Juyeon’s phone on the counter starts buzzing.

“Juyeonie, your phone!”

“Who is it?” Juyeon yells back from the bathroom.

Jaehyun looks. “It’s Youngjae!”

“Oh just pick up, hold on I gotta—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, and for that, Jaehyun is grateful. He swipes across the screen with his thumb and peers over the counter so that when the video call loads, Juyeon’s little brother gets a load of Jaehyun’s chin and nostrils and not much else.

“Hy- _ew_ , Jaehyun hyung,” Youngjae’s excited greeting is cut off with a yelp of disgust. “What the fuck, dude?"

“Is something the matter, Youngjae-ya?” Jaehyun teases, scrunching his chin down so that the sight is even more distorted in the camera.

Jaehyun remembers the first time he met Youngjae. It had been only a week or so into living with Juyeon, and the two of them had been in the middle of a Super Smash Bros match when Juyeon’s phone had buzzed. He had cursed and then asked if they could pause the game, and there Youngjae had been, practically caramel coloured from the Los Angeles sun and grinning.

An unprecedented softness had taken over Juyeon’s face, something subtle but there in the play of his lips and eyelashes. Youngjae was Juyeon’s little brother, Jaehyun learned — four years his junior and studying abroad in the States. Based on the way Juyeon’s eyes never left Youngjae’s smiling face as he recounted his day to them both, Jaehyun could readily discern how close they were.

Now, Juyeon’s little brother clicks his tongue impatiently, and the camera flips suddenly to show Youngjae’s living room floor.

“I got the package you guys sent me,” he announces happily. “Thanks for the ramen, I was worried I’d run out before it came.”

Jaehyun snorts and peers at the open box on the ground, half its contents already unpacked. “You know you wouldn’t run out as quickly if you didn’t eat it for every meal, right?” he asks dryly. “Or if you, I dunno, go to the very illustrious Korea Town I hear they have in L.A.?”

One of the ramen bulk packages has already been torn into, with a conspicuously uneven number of packets sitting in the corner of the screen. Before Youngjae can respond to his jibe, Jaehyun intones disbelievingly, “You’re kidding, how’ve you already eaten one? When did the box get there?”

“You know, I miss when you were still nice to me because you were scared I’d turn hyung against you,” Youngjae declares loudly.

“Youngjae-ya, seriously, you have to watch your sodium intake,” Juyeon says as he emerges from the hallway. “Appa’ll kill me if you get high blood pressure later in life. He’s already mad that I send you those care packages.”

Youngjae sniffs imperiously and turns the camera back to his own face. “I had a kale smoothie this morning for breakfast with my _avo-toast,_ if you must know.”

“Yeah? So where’s the second bag of honey butter crisps?” Juyeon deadpans.

“Also, what’s _avo-toast_?” Jaehyun can’t help but ask. Juyeon has appropriated his phone back, but Jaehyun shoves his head against Juyeon’s temple to appear in frame, eliciting an aborted chuckle from his roommate.

“Avo-toast is the English word for avocado on toast,” Youngjae explains. “It’s totally ridiculous and over-priced at restaurants, but my friends like to brunch a lot and I go cause, _y’know_. Of the homosexuality.”

His brother frowns. “Youngjae-ya, you know sexuality boils down to more than just those stereotypes, and it can be really harmful actually for people who are confused to—”

“Aw _hyung_ , c’mon, it was one measly joke! At my own expense! Aren’t I allowed to as the target of said joke?”

“Mm. Well actually, you do raise an interesting question about how our society is currently navigating who is and isn’t allowed to comment on seemingly insular subjects involving minority peoples,” Juyeon’s eyes light up as he speaks, drifting off to the side contemplatively the way they do when he considers a question particularly interesting to him. Youngjae turns his pout on Jaehyun.

“Jaehyun hyung, how has he gotten worse since I left?” he whines.

Jaehyun just shrugs. “Don’t look at me, I’ve known the guy for three months — this is on you, bud.” Juyeon’s elbow digs into his ribs, throwing him a betrayed look.

"Have you heard from appa?”

The question makes Juyeon freeze, and the jovial expression on his face falls.

“Ah, just- just the one time this month, and then the two times in July,” Juyeon says stiltedly, mouth twisted into something forlorn and regretful. Eric’s expression on the screen turns shuttered and closed off, and he huffs out a breath.

“Right. ‘Course,” he says bitterly.

Jaehyun, sensing the change in atmosphere, jerks up to leave — it feels like he’s suddenly invading something very private, but Juyeon’s hand twitches against his knee for the briefest of seconds, like he doesn’t want Jaehyun to go.

It makes him look up and gaze at Juyeon searchingly. His roommate gives him a tiny nod, so Jaehyun sits back down.

“He hasn’t called you since June?” Juyeon asks Youngjae softly. His voice is steeped in remorse.

“No. Don’t know why I expected differently,” Youngjae laughs, and the sound is caustic and brittle, entirely unlike his sunny demeanour from only moments before.

“Fuck,” Juyeon sighs and rubs his hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’ll talk to him—”

“Don’t. It’s fine, I get it, it’s not a big deal, hyung. I just miss home, I guess.”

Juyeon nods, elbows on his knees and slumped over so that the phone hangs limply from his grip. “I know, I’m- I’ve taken on a couple extra manuscripts at the publishing house and the semester’s about to start so I’ll have more tutoring jobs — I’ll get you home this winter, I swear.”

Youngjae’s face turns tense and unhappy. “Hyung, don’t do that, you’re already so busy—”

Someone on Youngjae’s end calls out to him, and his blonde hair falls in his face as he turns to respond in English. When he turns back, he looks a little harried.

“Ugh, my roommate just told me we have to leave if we’re going to make the basketball game.” He makes a face. “I should go, but seriously, hyung, don’t overwork yourself — I don’t have to come home this winter, it’s really fine.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Seriously! Don’t, I’ll be so mad if you do, okay? Okay, gotta go, bye, love you, bye Jaehyun hy—”

The call ends.

Juyeon’s phone makes a clattering sound on the coffee table when he tosses it down, and he throws his body back onto the sofa. Suddenly his face, normally youthful and filled with an unfailing sort of wonder for the world around him, looks older. Defeated.

“Juyeonie, do you- are you okay?”

Jaehyun feels like a bull in a china shop, clumsy and oafish, but Juyeon smiles softly at him anyway with a petal mouth.

“Thanks, hyung, I’m sorry you had to- I didn’t mean to make you feel awkward,” he responds softly.

Jaehyun shakes his head quickly and reaches over to touch Juyeon on the shoulder. “No, never, I swear. Is there anything- I mean, do you want to talk about it? Or I can distract you or something?”

Juyeon chuckles tiredly and sits up, pulling his legs up into his arms so that he’s small and pressed up against the sofa cushions. He picks up one of the throw pillows and fiddles with the embroidery on it.

“I’ve told you about my mother, right?”

Jaehyun’s throat goes dry and he nods.

Juyeon had. It had been midnight, or maybe one in the morning, and Jaehyun had crept out of bed for a glass of water. He’d shuffled into the living room, and there Juyeon had been, curled up on the sofa and facing the window while Seoul’s night lights danced across the waxy leaves of his hanging ivies.

“Juyeon?”

He didn’t get a response, and Jaehyun had frowned sleepily until he saw the white wires hanging from Juyeon’s ears and heard the faint trickle of music in the otherwise silent room. So as not to startle his roommate, Jaehyun turned the tap on in the sink.

Juyeon had jumped anyway. “Hyung?”

Jaehyun coughed a little, uncertain and in strange territory. “Hey, Juyeonie,” he had whispered. “Why you up?”

And Juyeon had turned to him, his face lit up by streetlights and civilisation, cyan and magenta and chartreuse, and he had looked — sad. Sad like Atlas carrying the weight of the universe on his shoulders.

“My mother died today.”

A sound, somewhere between a strangled choke and a cry had burst from then died in Jaehyun’s throat, and he had rushed forward until Juyeon said quickly —

“Jesus, sorry, not today, fuck I didn’t mean to- it’s the anniversary of her passing, not _today_ today—”

Jaehyun had come to a halt in front of Juyeon, with words and regrets trapped against his lips, but Juyeon had only smiled and looked the same kind of sad as he did when reading an ending he didn’t like to a book he did.

“Can you- or, I dunno if you’re stayin’ up, but-” Juyeon stuttered and slurred his words all at once, taffy in his tired mouth, “-but if you are, and don’t feel like you have to, hyung, really, but would you—”

Jaehyun sat beside Juyeon and took his hand. “Juyeon-ah,” he said gently, like a reprimand, “Anything.”

Juyeon had smiled and looked down at their linked fingers then and murmured, “You already- this is good. Perfect.” There was no need to say anything else, Jaehyun supposed, as they clasped their fingers tighter together, not when flesh and bone had filled the spaces where words couldn’t reach.

They had stayed like that. At some point, perhaps at two or three in the morning, Juyeon had whispered, “Car crash,” and then perhaps at four or five, Juyeon, in a cracked voice, asked if Jaehyun would play him a song he liked. And Jaehyun had — he had picked an artist they would feature on the podcast a few weeks later, someone with a voice that sounded like how a lump in your throat felt, who had learned to fold vinyl crackling and phonographic imperfections into something beautiful.

Ostinato. Simple progressions. The steady in-and-out of Juyeon’s breath, the rise and fall of his chest beside Jaehyun’s.

So yes, Juyeon had in fact, told Jaehyun about his mother, in not so many words but in knuckles pressed close and sable skies and music that Jaehyun liked.

Now, on that same sofa they had sat on for hours on end that mid-summer twilight, Juyeon looks at Jaehyun and bites the inside of his cheek.

“She died ages ago- over ten years now, thirteen actually, this year. I remember her more than Youngjae does, but still not really in a lot of ways. You know how things fade, and all that.”

Jaehyun does and doesn’t, but he nods encouragingly anyway.

Juyeon goes on. “I think, well, I think my father- he tried his best after, y’know? And he’s a good dad in a lot of ways - he provides and is fundamentally kind and responsible - but I think the real root of the problem, the real thing that upsets Youngjae the most is that it doesn’t really feel like he cares. Like, he’s a good _guardian_ , and it feels shitty to complain when a lot of people can’t say the same, but is he a good parent? Not really. Y’know?”

There’s a pause where Jaehyun frowns and bites his lip as he considers the question.

“No…” he finally says slowly. “I don’t think I do.” He cringes. “Sorry. You don’t have to explain though.”

Juyeon chuckles. “I like that you’re always so honest, hyung,” he smiles fondly up at Jaehyun from where he’s leaning. “It’s really nice.”

He sits up and clears his throat. “I guess if I had to put it into words, it’s kind of like how there’s a basic list, right, of all the things a father is technically supposed to do. Provide for the family, offer career advice, give you a roof, food, clothes, et cetera, et cetera. But all the stuff in between? The stuff that’s not on the list, like affection, and sympathy when you feel sick or asking about your day?” Juyeon shakes his head.

“He doesn’t do that. And it’s not that I think he doesn’t love us or resents us or anything like that, I just think he never expected to have to be the one to provide visible and verbal love. So, like, in lieu of asking us about our feelings, he’ll give a lecture on the American political climate.”

Jaehyun exhales a huff of a breath. He doesn’t really know what to say other than platitudinous nothings like ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘that sucks’, but before he has to, there’s a knock on their front door.

“Yoohoo!” Kevin’s voice echoes loudly into their apartment.

Juyeon startles and seems to come back into himself.

“It’s unlocked,” he calls back. In an undertone, to Jaehyun, he says ruefully, “I almost forgot about breakfast.”

Kevin and Jacob traipse in, their arms laden with takeout boxes, and Juyeon and Jaehyun stand to greet them.

“Hey guys—”

“Hyung I like your T-shirt, did you—”

“—long line at the cafe?”

“How has it only been a week—”

The rumbling of greetings and warm hello’s wash over Jaehyun as he hugs Jacob and then Kevin, but his concern for the tiredness around Juyeon’s eyes doesn’t go away. Perhaps the worry lingers because the melancholy lines indeed haven’t quite faded, seeing as Jacob pulls back from his hug with Juyeon to ask concernedly, “You okay?”

“Let’s set food up first,” Juyeon deflects, and Jacob concedes even though it doesn’t look like he wants to. The kettle is set to boil once more, and Juyeon tips the coffee grounds into his French press while Jaehyun grabs four glasses from the cupboard and sets about tipping ice into them.

By the time the coffee is made, and the sweet scent of a Sumatran roast is gently skimming the shards of light streaming through their window, Kevin and Jacob have laid out the takeout breakfast they brought from a breakfast restaurant near them — waffles, pancakes, eggs, and bacon. A classic North American fare, Kevin had declared happily.

“So? Everything alright, Juyeonie?” Jacob asks after taking his first bite.

Juyeon rolls the glass of coffee in his hand and takes a sip. “Nothing really, just the usual with my dad,” he grimaces.

Kevin frowns and sets his fork down. “Have you talked to him yet? About how you and Youngjae have been feeling?”

Jaehyun watches as Juyeon’s face tightens. “No,” his roommate responds. “It’s- it’s not that easy to say stuff like that.”

“But how can you know that if you don’t try? You deserve to tell him how you’ve been feeling you know. You don’t have to, like, protect him — he’s an adult,” Kevin counters.

“Kev, you know it’s not that easy, I can’t just _say_ stuff like this to him, it would- I mean, it would totally break his heart,” Juyeon argues back. “And it’s not like he’s a shitty dad or anything, he tries his best — I’m not going to tell him—”

“That it’s hurtful when he doesn’t actually talk to you like he cares about what you have to say? That you resent the way he substitutes being a guest speaker on medicine and politics for being a father? That it breaks _your_ heart when he says insensitive stuff just cause he doesn’t think twice?”

Kevin sounds upset and Jacob lays a placating hand on his thigh, but Jaehyun’s focus is on Juyeon whose face is drawn and ashen.

“Yes, exactly,” he responds tightly, pushing his fringe tensely out of his eyes. “I’m not going to tell him all that outright because he’s had a hard time and he does his best and that would be really fucking ungrateful.”

Kevin huffs out a disbelieving laugh that Jacob shushes quickly. “Juyeon-ah,” Jacob says gently. “It’s not ungrateful to tell your parents what their shortcomings are if their shortcomings are hurting you. You don’t owe them this twisted emotional immunity just because they’re basically good parents to you — it’s not that impossible to just say, ‘Abeoji, here’s how I’ve been feeling.’”

“Actually, it kind of is.”

Jaehyun’s own voice startles him as much as it seems to startle the other three. Their eyes, different shades of surprise and confusion and wariness, turn on him, and the attention makes him flush.

“Sorry, it’s- maybe I’m way off base, but you guys didn’t grow up here,” he tries to say as gently as possible to Kevin and Jacob. “Child-parent relationships are…different. It’s not like in the West.”

Kevin purses his lips. “How could they possibly be that different? It’s not like we’re fourth generation immigrants or something, our parents grew up in South Korea too.”

Juyeon leans forward and sets his chin in his hand, regarding his friends with a weary sort of fondness. “You’d be surprised, actually,” he murmurs. “From the way you’ve both described your parents, the way they do things and parented you guys growing up, it both sounds familiar and foreign at the same time. I don’t think…I think you guys didn’t grow up with the same expectations that we did when it comes to _hyodo_.”

 _Hyodo._ There the word is again, the single nexus of a universe Jaehyun has never known different from. _Hyodo_. A good son. A filial son. The steady drumbeat of obligation and pressure and love thumping onwards and onwards.

Kevin looks a little hurt when he responds. “Just ‘cause we grew up in Canada doesn’t mean we aren’t filial,” he points out.

“No, no, of course — I wasn’t saying that,” Juyeon says quickly. He reaches out to lightly stroke Kevin’s wrist and then knuckles. “I don’t think you’re not filial, really. I just think it’s not…as central? Predominant, maybe, in your lives.”

He looks to Jaehyun for help, and Jaehyun jumps a little. “Right, right, it’s not that you guys aren’t! It’s…well, for me at least, _hyodo_ is the only thing that I know.”

It sounds ineffectual to Jaehyun at least but Juyeon nods. His face grows contemplative and pensive, and his voice is heavy when he speaks next. “It’s sort of like, when you think about your parents and everything they’ve sacrificed for you, every late night they worked and hardship they endured without you knowing — when I think about those things, thinking about adding even an ounce of pain physically hurts.”

There’s a hoarseness in Juyeon’s throat, like it’s hurting him now, even. “It’s not logical or even healthy, but it’s the way it feels.” He looks up to meet their eyes, and there’s something ancient in their soft glow. “My father- he’s been on his own all these years. He learned to cook and went to PTA meetings and didn’t become Chief of Surgery so that he could be home to make sure our homework was done. I owe him _everything._ How could I just...hurt him like that?”

Jaehyun feels something stinging in his oesophagus, and he swallows thickly to get rid of the sensation. Kevin and Jacob look troubled and upset, and for a moment Jaehyun thinks one of them might push back.

But then Jacob deflates and presses himself closer to Jaehyun. A warm hand skitters up his back and then rests lightly at the nape of Jaehyun’s neck, and Jacob murmurs, as he leans forward to touch Juyeon’s knee, “Okay. I get it.”

Juyeon exhales too, the rigidity of his expression melting away into something more comfortable. He picks up a piece of bacon and folds it into his mouth.

“Just don’t forget that your feelings are valid,” Jacob adds, like he can’t quite help it. Juyeon smiles around his chopsticks, a solemn weary thing that says _thank you for caring even if you don’t know like I know_ and nods.

“Thanks guys.” He squeezes Kevin’s hand, still held in his, and Kevin squeezes back.

The conversation gradually shifts and moves to something more lighthearted - the topic of Jaehyun’s impending birthday, to be exact - but Jaehyun’s mind drifts continuously back to a story about a girl named Sim Cheong.  
  


* * *  
  


Jaehyun is seven when he hears _Sim Cheong-jeon_ — The Tale of Sim Cheong.

It’s funny, he doesn’t have the best memory when it comes to sensation or feeling. If someone asked him how it felt to break his arm playing tennis as a teenager, he wouldn’t be able to say more than, “It hurt.”

But this — this he remembers. He remembers his teacher’s voice, that mellow decibel smoothing over their adolescent ears in that slightly dim classroom. He remembers the story she wove, of a girl who loved her blind father so much that when he was given the chance to regain his eyesight in exchange for an offering of three hundred bags of rice to Buddha, she offered herself to sailors in exchange for those same bags of grain so that her father could see once more.

Jaehyun remembers the sudden ache in his chest, the cottonwool that seemed to fill his ears, the steady _thump thump thump_ of his heart against his breastbone. Jaehyun remembers the way desire - to be as good of a son as Sim Cheong was a daughter, so good that people told stories about him - thrummed in his veins like an electrical current, pulsing and pulsing and pulsing.

He can still feel it today. Quieter, perhaps, less obtrusive, but still — when Jaehyun thinks of Sim Cheong and her blind father, lightning sets flame to acres of land inside him.

  
* * *

  
Thursday evening finds Jaehyun and Juyeon sprawled out in the living room, Juyeon on the floor surrounded by manuscripts and Jaehyun on the sofa playing his shitty phone game that he kind of sucks at but is determined to beat.

The room is silent save for the whisper of paper, the slight scratch of ballpoint and Jaehyun’s fingernails tapping against his screen. Three months ago, he might’ve yelled at his screen, crowing with success or shrieking with defeat, but living with Juyeon has taught him the strange art of silence. He almost likes it now, the quiet that comes from coexisting with someone you know deeper than words. Appreciates it, even.

Still, when he unlocks the new world - a cyberpunk utopia - he sits up and whispers, “Juyeon-ah?”

Juyeon looks up, glasses sliding down his long nose. “What’s up, hyung?” he asks at a normal volume.

“Wanna go to G-Plex this Saturday?”

G-Plex is the arcade bar near their apartment, chock full of retro games and reasonably cheap drinks, and Jaehyun thinks it might be the best place on Earth. Sangyeon had brought them both there originally, and though Juyeon is less keen on video games - he’s just _bad_ at them, Sangyeon had whispered loudly to Jaehyun over Juyeon’s protests - it's still always fun.

“Ah,” Juyeon bites his bottom lip, holding in a bashful smile. “I actually can’t this weekend — I have, uh, a date.”

Rose unfurls on his cheekbones and his eyes gleam brightly in the ambient feeble light of their living room.

“Oh.” Jaehyun’s voice sounds reedy and thin, even to his own ears. “Right. With that- the gym guy?”

Juyeon grins, like he can’t help it. “Yeah, Sungmin.”

Jaehyun chews on the inside of his cheek, aware that he’s left the silence too long to be polite but unable to help himself anyway.

“Hey,” he blurts out suddenly, after just a beat too long. “Can I ask you a weird question?”

Juyeon sits up, surrounded by his nest of books and papers and nods with an encouraging smile.

“Sure.”

Jaehyun stares concertedly at a small crack in the plaster on the wall before he speaks. “How did you know you weren’t into girls only?”

Juyeon hums as he considers the question, drawing his knees up to his chest and leaning against the TV stand. “Mm, myself specifically, it came with falling in love. I guess I’ve always been kind of a romantic,” he laughs ruefully. “I fell in love at the drop of a hat all the way through childhood into my teenage years, and then at some point, I’d fallen in love with so many different kinds of people that it just became a given that I wasn’t straight.”

Jaehyun, too, tucks himself close on the sofa, but unlike Juyeon whose pose is languid and relaxed, Jaehyun’s elbows and knees close in around the frame of his body like battlements.

“But,” he starts, “But isn’t- I mean your father, he must’ve been furious, right? Or doesn’t he know? And wasn’t it hard, that first person who wasn’t a girl, wasn’t it hard being like, ‘oh fuck you’re not a girl’?”

There’s a quiver in his voice, the shaking of fortress stones under siege.

Juyeon’s easy countenance melts into something a little warier, and he leans forward to hug his arms around his calves. Slowly, like he’s coaxing a frightened animal, he says, “My father does know, but Youngjae and I are lucky — he’s one of the few doctors in Korea who have accepted that being queer is not a psychological disorder but merely a state of being. He’s never treated it like anything more than fact.”

Jaehyun’s roommate sighs and fiddles with a corner of the rug by him contemplatively. “As for the first person, I don’t really remember.” He smiles sheepishly. “I was five, and when I told my parents I was going to marry Park Junseo, they never told me that boys don’t marry boys. That helped — a lot, I think. Growing up with parents who weren’t glaringly heteronormative.”

There’s a pause, a lull in the conversation where the words seem to recede like the tide, and Jaehyun is laid bare - wet sand, impressionable and vulnerable - to Juyeon’s gaze. He opens his mouth, then closes it, and then the tide is advancing once more, too fast, too big, sea-foam and rocky debris and Jaehyun feels saltwater rise in his throat, finds himself struggling to breathe even as the words choke their way out but Jaehyun is stronger, has to be, and—

“What’re you guys doing for your date?”

He wins. A small victory. Words that aren’t the ones propelling themselves up his chest burst forth, and the scary ones - the ones he doesn’t quite know the sound of but knows the _feel_ of somehow - get strangled down. Even so, Jaehyun doesn’t miss the desperation in his own voice, and Juyeon likely doesn’t either.

His roommate looks carefully at him before saying quietly, “Dinner, then drinks maybe.”

Jaehyun swallows noisily.

“Everything okay, hyung?” Juyeon sounds a little worried now, a small crease forming between his eyebrows.

“Yeah, yep,” Jaehyun croaks out, throat thick with ocean water. “Totally.”  
  


* * *  
  


**Lee Juyeon**

_Hyung_

_Do you have an opinion on cute_

_frog pics?_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_As a matter of fact, I do_

_A very strong one_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Oh omg great!!!!!!_

_You like them??? :)_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Juyeon-ah I literally cannot  
_ _think of a single thing I would  
_ _want less than frog pictures_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Aw_

_:’(_

_Okay  
  
_

_Any chance you like  
_ _newts better?_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Don’t be disgusting_

**Lee Juyeon**

 _Feel like you’re being a  
_ _hair hyperbolic right now  
_ _but okay  
  
_

 _I will simply describe to you  
_ _the way the little green fellow  
_ _looked perched atop the lily  
_ _pad as he sunbathed — it was  
_ _majestic, hyung_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Don’t forget to buy coffee on  
_ _the way home we’re out_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Sigh  
  
_

* * *  
  


“Son, are you eating enough? You look so wan.” His mother has, in the twenty some years she’s been a parent, perfected the unique balance between admonishment and concern.

Jaehyun sighs and rolls his eyes. “Eomma, I’m fine, it’s just bad lighting.”

“Well why is your room so dark then? That’s terrible for your eyes!”

Jiwoo’s voice suddenly pipes up in the background of the call and Jaehyun hears her snort before her face comes into frame. “Hi, baby brother,” she grins. “Are you having fun on your weekly call with our lovely parents?”

“Yah!” his mother swats at her daughter. “What are you implying?”

Jaehyun laughs. “Nothing, noona’s not implying anything, eomma, I’m having a lot of fun. So much fun. This is the most fun I’ve ever and will ever have in my short, meaningless—”

“Your roommate has really brought out your flair for the dramatic, Jaehyun-ah,” his father deadpans from the right.

“Can you all stop interrupting while I’m trying to have a conversation with my son?” Jaehyun’s mother demands vexedly. “Do you two wait day in and day out until Saturday comes so that you can talk with your beloved child? I don’t think you do.”

She turns back to Jaehyun, who’s valiantly trying to smother down a laugh, with an aggrieved expression. “Do you see what I have to deal with when you’re not home? When are you coming home, Jaehyun-ah?”

“Ah, eomma, I’ll be home for Chuseok, I told you,” Jaehyun whines. “Are you gonna guilt trip me every time we video chat?”

“Yes,” his mother sniffs. “Until the day you decide to come home to your weary, nerve-stricken mother—”

“Oh so this is where you get it from Jaehyunie, we have thespian genes,” Jiwoo cuts in, narrowly avoiding her parents’ twin hands coming to bat her smug expression away only a moment later.

The three of them - although really, Jaehyun’s father is merely interjecting with dry retorts - break out into a squabble, and Jaehyun watches them fondly through the small screen of his phone until he hears a keypad beeping and the front door to the flat open.

“Guys, guys, I have to go!” he calls in an attempt to get their attention. “I have plans tonight, my friends just got here. Same time next week?”

Footsteps are filtering through to his bedroom, familiar and eliciting warmth somehow, so before his family have a chance to respond, he taps the red hang-up button. He’ll probably get a barrage of texts later about the sheer disrespect, but for now, Jaehyun bounds out of the room, excited to see—

“Chanhee? I didn’t know you were coming tonight,” Jaehyun blurts out surprisedly.

The man in question flicks newly touched up platinum hair out of his eyes and levels a displeased look at Jaehyun. “Nice to know I’m welcome,” he tuts, adjusting the heavy-looking shopping bag he has in his hands.

A grin cracks over Jaehyun’s face and he chuckles before pulling Chanhee into a hug. “I didn’t mean it like that, don’t be an ass. I just meant I thought you said you’d be too busy for dinner tonight.”

Jaehyun had, in lieu of going to the arcade bar with Juyeon as he had originally planned, asked their friends over for dinner and a movie. He’d invited Sunwoo too - and Sunwoo’s roommate - but he had politely declined, citing an ex-hook-up-who-he’s-trying-to-restart-things-with’s birthday party. Jaehyun admires Sunwoo’s temerity if nothing else.

Chanhee pulls back from the hug and flicks imaginary lint off his shoulder - just to make a point, Jaehyun thinks fondly - before saying nonchalantly, “I do, I’m not staying. I’m here cause—”

“Chanhee-ya!”

Juyeon’s alarmed squawk makes both Jaehyun and Chanhee jump.

“Juyeonie, what happened—”

Jaehyun’s concern is cut off when Juyeon pokes his head out of the bathroom and, lo and behold, his roommate, closest friend in Seoul, sweet anthropology doctorate-to-be and owner of the prettiest glossy dark hair Jaehyun has ever seen, is _blonde._ He looks like a drowned, blonde rat - is that even a thing? - but like, if the rat had gotten caught in a patch of algae but was also still really good looking.

Jaehyun’s brain feels like it’s overheating with how hard he’s trying to process the situation.

“Oh good, the colour remover got most of it out,” Chanhee says beside him, sounding both relieved, and, more upsettingly, like he _knew_ this was going to happen.

“What is happening?!” Jaehyun shrieks as he hurries after Chanhee into the bathroom.

He finds Juyeon sitting mournfully on the toilet seat, with Chanhee standing over him, long fingers caught in blonde and slightly green hair.

“Juyeonie’s dyeing his hair for his date,” Chanhee murmurs absently as he checks through the soaked strands.

“I’m dyeing my hair _and_ I’m going on a date,” Juyeon admonishes with a pout in his voice. “Don’t say it like I’m doing it for him, that makes it sound so bad. Also, _help me_ , Chanhee, I look ridiculous.”

“But- you- when? You were- you had black hair this _morning!”_ Jaehyun screeches. Both Juyeon and Chanhee wince at the appalling decibel Jaehyun manages to achieve in their echoey bathroom.

“My hair was dyed black—” Juyeon begins to say, looking far calmer now that Chanhee is there with him.

“Espresso,” Chanhee corrects.

“—right, sorry, _espresso_ ,” Juyeon amends with a hint of irony in his tone. His smirk is red and sharp, and Jaehyun’s brain, still fixated on the blonde, flickers briefly to admiring how objectively lovely it is. “It was blonde before, this colour kinda, without the green - that’s the colour remover - but I asked Chanhee to darken it literally two days before you moved in so that’s how it went back to blonde so fast.”

Jaehyun sputters. “But- what? It looked so- so healthy? It didn’t seem fried at all.”

“I’m good, aren’t I?” Chanhee simpers. Jaehyun ignores him.

“What colour are you doing it?” he asks Juyeon instead, whose cheeks turn the loveliest shade of peach under the warm light of the bathroom sconces.

“Uh, you’ll see. Later,” he mumbles. Jaehyun must look very affronted if Juyeon’s sudden, “I just want it to be a surprise, don’t look at me like that!” is anything to by.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jaehyun sees something shrewd sharpen in Chanhee’s gaze. Chanhee turns his head to look at Juyeon carefully, and then back to Jaehyun once more. Something like fight or flight kicks in in Jaehyun’s brain, but he resists it to wheedle with Juyeon.

“C’mon, just tell me the wheelhouse of the colour! Warm or cool? Light or dark? _Are you doing neon green?_ ”

A laugh, bright and sunny, bursts out of Juyeon. “No! Get out, hyung, seriously — I’ll show you later. Aren’t Jacob, Kev and Sangyeon coming over soon anyway?”

Jaehyun lets himself get nudged out the bathroom, grumbling, “Fine, fine, fine, I can see where I’m not wanted.” The door shuts with a decisive click, and then Jaehyun is staring forlornly at the nicked floorboards. “I feel very left out you know!” he yells, if only to belabour the joke.

“Oh my god, it’s like you’re married,” Chanhee groans from inside. “You will survive the two hour—”

“It takes _two hours_ to dye hair?!”

“— _two hour_ separation!” Chanhee shrieks. “Now can you please fuck off and get back to whatever nasty dude-bro thing you were up to so I can do my _job?_ ”

Jaehyun harrumphs loud enough that his chest hurts from the effort to make sure he’s heard over the sound of running water.  
  


* * *  
  


One and a half hours later, Jaehyun is shoving pizza into his mouth as he expounds upon the merits of the movie _Tazza_ , while Sangyeon and Jacob look politely dubious. Kevin interjects every few minutes with, “Okay but what if we just picked literally _anything_ so I can actually start eating,” but no one really pays him any mind.

It’s when Jaehyun is loudly listing a highlight reel of the film’s most iconic moments - _He slams the cards down! Just slams ‘em down!_ \- when Juyeon’s door opens.

“Okay you have your phone, your wallet - if he offers to pay, you should say yes, don’t go Dutch, that’s so tacky, also you should definitely put out—”

“Please stop talking, oh my god,” Juyeon can be heard groaning at Chanhee. Their footsteps draw near, and Jaehyun subconsciously turns his head to look, as if to wait for Juyeon to emerge.

Perhaps in Hollywood, there would be a soundtrack - something saccharine and with a catchy beat - playing when Juyeon emerges, or even some tacky editing to highlight the absolute sight he makes. This is real life, however, and there’s none of that here, not in their small Sinchon apartment with walls that are almost frighteningly close together.

Instead there’s —

There’s Juyeon, with freshly dyed hair the colour of cherry wine, so velveteen in its colour that Juyeon’s skin seems to glow amber and flax beneath it, as he stands under the small living room archway that has a paint chip on the right hand side.

There’s Juyeon, with his freckle-kissed collarbones jutting out against something white and low-cut, glittering at his earlobes and the elegant column of his neck, swathed in the sheen of a bomber jacket the colour of the Busan sea, but somehow he still smells like sunlight and books and _him_ underneath it all.

There’s Juyeon, with the shy curl of his lips upwards, ivory teeth and luminescent eyes — the striking chiaroscuro of androgyny and yet Jaehyun still finds something relentlessly intimate and familiar in him.

He lets out a breath.

"Hey, I- uh, I didn’t mean to make a big entrance,” Juyeon laughs, and the beautiful illusion breaks into something less divine but more comforting somehow in the awkward twist of his mouth.

The realisation that he thinks Juyeon is beautiful - in a way that he’s never found anyone quite as beautiful - hits Jaehyun like a freight train and he goes pale at the thought.

But-! So he admires Juyeon; he had admired his other friends, too, hadn’t he? Maybe not quite like this, but surely, he— in front of him Juyeon’s nose scrunches as his earring gets tangled on the shoulder detail of his jacket, and Jaehyun is so caught off guard by the ridiculously endearing sight that the contemplation is tugged away, lost like a fluttering ribbon to the pull of an autumn breeze.

“Your hair!” Kevin shrieks from the floor. “Oh my god, the _taste!_ His range! Your faves could never!”

Juyeon squawks. “What- stop that, what are you even saying?”

“Ignore him, he’s been going on Twitter with our students during their lunch breaks,” Jacob excuses with a roll of his eyes. “You do look so nice, Juyeonie, have fun on your date.”

“You don’t think the jewellery’s too much? I feel like it’s too much with the heeled boots,” Juyeon cringes, even as Chanhee scoffs under his breath.

“You’re going to blow him away,” Sangyeon says with a gentle smile and a comforting tug at Juyeon’s outstretched hand. “Be careful though, yes?”

Juyeon smiles fondly and squeezes Sangyeon’s hand back. “Ah hyung, I’ll be fine. I should go though, I won’t make it in time to Itaewon if I don’t leave now.”

Jaehyun is only dimly aware of Kevin’s cloying _oooh well la-di-da,_ otherwise focused as he is on the small, hopeful smile Juyeon throws his way before waving and stepping out the door with Chanhee in tow. He barely catches the sound of Sangyeon and Kevin going back to debating between the marginal utilitarian benefit of picking a _good_ movie later versus an _okay_ movie now.

It’s not until Jacob nudges him with his elbow and says playfully, “Fix your face,” that Jaehyun has the fortitude to snap out of it.

“Shut up,” he grunts, shoving another mouthful of pizza into his mouth even as his ears heat up. Loudly, to cover up his gaffe, Jaehyun announces, “You know what, I will give up Tazza if we settle on any of the Bourne films right now.”

He should’ve known that would spark a whole other round of debates, complete with affirmations, rebuttals and closing statements.  
  


* * *

  
Jaehyun is not staying awake. He’s not — he just happens to be awake right now some time close to midnight while Juyeon is out there in Itaewon getting romanced by some gym hunk who took a whole month to set up a dinner date with him. Jaehyun simply _is_ awake, because ‘staying awake’ implies a level of active commitment that Jaehyun does not have right now, not even a little bit.

Sangyeon, Kevin and Jacob had left hours ago after two movies and an excessive amount of pizza, but Jaehyun had remained awake and restless for some reason, pacing around the living room and then his bedroom when the clock turned to a socially inappropriate living-room-dwelling hour.

For the nth time, Jaehyun contemplates forcing sleep on himself by mentally beating his consciousness into submission, but something wired and jittery prevents him from doing so, like a too bright light is being held in the periphery of his vision.

Just when he’s about to pull up a guided meditation on YouTube - a dumb frippery city-person thing that Juyeon has gotten him hooked on - or knock himself over the head, Jaehyun hears the front door open. He’s out of bed before he can even contemplate how weird it might be for Juyeon to see Jaehyun waiting up for him (because yeah, fuck it, that’s what he was doing).

He skids around the corner only to come to an abrupt halt when he sees the expression on Juyeon’s face. There’s none of the happy flush of a promising date that Jaehyun had secretly dreaded seeing, nothing of the drunk-in-love gleam that he had expected to see in Juyeon’s eyes.

Instead, Juyeon, with his boots toed tiredly off and smelling of expensive liquor, meets his gaze with surprise and then- dejection.

It’s many times worse than seeing him deliriously happy and Jaehyun’s mouth falls open in dismay.

“Juyeonie? You- what happened?”

Juyeon’s lips tug upwards in some pale imitation of a smile, but his eyes are dull and disappointed as he pulls his earrings then choker off.

“Did you guys not have a good time?” Jaehyun asks, because the silence is growing fast unbearable. “Was he not nice?”

The clink of metal on the countertop as Juyeon drops his jewellery and sets about making himself a cup of tea barely makes a ripple in the otherwise stagnant quiet.

As the kettle fills, he says quietly, “It wasn’t…I thought it would go differently. I didn’t…enjoy myself.”

Jaehyun sits on the barstool across from Juyeon - how many times now have they done this? So many late night talks in joy, in melancholy, in frustration that the sight of Juyeon steeping his tea becomes as familiar as a well-loved photograph - and waits patiently for Juyeon to find the right words.

When they finally come, in between sips and measured pauses, Juyeon traces a finger around the rim of his speckled, sage green mug he had made in pottery one time with Kevin.

“I guess, I don’t know. Maybe he thought I was going to be…a specific type of person? And I’m not that person and I just felt…really weird the whole time. But, I don’t know, it’s not like it was his fault, he was perfectly nice? I think?” Juyeon sounds unsure.

Jaehyun doesn’t quite understand but frowns anyway. “If he made you feel weird, I don’t think he sounds nice at all,” he says, a little flatly with the skitter of irritation he feels against his nerve endings.

Juyeon blinks slowly and nods, like he’s coming out of a strange dream. “I guess so.” He thinks for a minute, seeming to weigh his words, then asks, “Have you heard of _iltik_ before?”

Jaehyun frowns. “No? Is that slang?”

Juyeon shrugs and walks over to sit beside Jaehyun. He sways only a little - although it’s enough for Jaehyun to worry about his levels of intoxication - and turns the barstool so that they can face one another instead of crane their necks awkwardly to make eye contact.

“Yeah, kinda. It’s one of those abbreviations - _il_ from normal, or in this case, straight and I think _tik_ comes from…actually, I don’t know where _tik_ comes from.” Juyeon’s brow puckers, and Jaehyun is worried for a moment that he’ll get distracted by etymological roots as he often does.

“Anyway,” he continues, luckily, “It’s basically slang for being straight-passing.”

When Jaehyun looks confused, Juyeon smiles ruefully. “Y’know, like, me versus Chanhee. It would be a lot easier for me to convince someone I was straight because of all these expectations of what queer men do and look like and sound like, or whatever. Heteronormativity and all that. But yeah, it’s a really popular word on dating apps. Everyone puts in their bio that they want _iltik_ guys.”

Jaehyun makes a face. “What? Why?”

“‘Cause people think there’s a way to not be gay about being gay, apparently,” Juyeon says wryly.

“That’s so…what? I thought- I mean, they’re all LGBT? No? Wouldn’t they understand that you can’t just-?” Jaehyun is flabbergast.

Juyeon shrugs. “You’d think, I guess.” He bites his lip, and the irony fades into something regretful in his expression. “I think Sungmin- he thought maybe I was, he thought I was more…masculine or whatever. And it’s not like I’m not most of the time, but he, I don’t know, looked caught off guard? Maybe? When he saw me in my- y’know, and then he said stuff, just here and there, and it made me feel…weird. Yeah.”

Jaehyun isn’t really used to this Juyeon, who is unsure of his words and who looks lost and hurt and doubtful of himself. Jaehyun isn’t used to this Juyeon who picks at his cuticles and refuses to look at the lovely dangling earrings he’d dropped on the countertop or the boots Jaehyun had caught him polishing the night before like he’s _embarrassed_ of them.

Jaehyun isn’t used to this Juyeon, and he hates that someone - some idiot, no less - made Juyeon look and feel this way.

“That guy’s a- he’s such a fuckass,” Jaehyun seethes vehemently. The epithet makes Juyeon’s head shoot up, eyebrows almost in his hairline. Jaehyun barrels on, “He’s a fucking idiot, for one, for thinking _iltik_ is at all important - seriously, what the fuck? - and he’s a fucking idiot again for being anything short of fantastic to you.”

Juyeon stares at him, a look of almost bewildered mirth dancing in his eyes. “Fuckass?” he asks tremulously with his mouth pulled into a funny squiggly line.

Jaehyun blinks, then comes to. “Yeah! Fuckass,” he reasserts. “A total fuckass.”

Nothing would’ve prepared him for Juyeon’s hysterical shriek of laughter, as short as it is loud, bursting forth and disappearing so quickly that when Jaehyun finds himself reeled back in surprise, he almost wonders if he had imagined it.

“Fuckass,” Juyeon repeats again. Suddenly he rears up. “Fuckass! You’re right, hyung, he was a _fuckass!_ Did I tell you he said ‘are you even gay if you’re dating a guy that looks like a girl’?”

Jaehyun begins to shake his head no, but Juyeon is already steamrolling on, “Well he did! And a whole bunch of other bullshit about how men should do this and men should do that. He asked if my earrings were pulling too much on my earlobes at one point! My _earlobes!”_

Juyeon gestures frenetically to his own ears.

Sensing the clear shift in atmosphere, Jaehyun lets himself be swept along. “Earlobes! Does he even know how much you tug on them anyway?”

Juyeon looks delighted, and only now does Jaehyun realise he might still be a little drunk from the date. “Right?!” he bellows.

Galvanised, Jaehyun echoes, “Yeah! It’s only like your cutest fucking habit!”

There’s a deafening silence.

Jaehyun wonders if the blush on his roommate’s face, so tall on Juyeon’s cheekbones that the stain seems to spill like watercolour into the space under Juyeon’s eyes and up his temple, is any match for the fire-engine red heat he’s sure is on his own cheeks.

Juyeon opens his mouth then closes it, eyes suddenly suspiciously bright under the glaze of tipsiness. “Oh. You…” he trails off, mouth pursed the way one might if something particularly sweet had been slipped between their lips. “You think that’s my cutest habit?”

There’s only the barest hint of irony in his tone, drowned in something tender and delicate that sounds a little like hope.

Jaehyun swallows convulsively and jerks his head into an approximation of a nod. “Yeah,” he rasps. “I- yeah. I do.”

Juyeon bites the inside of his cheek and nods spasmodically back. “Cool. Cool,” he mumbles. “Uh, I’m gonna stay up a little longer, maybe watch some anime. Do you- are you sleeping or do you wanna…?”

“Not sleeping, anime good,” Jaehyun manages out, like some sort of reanimated Neanderthal.

Juyeon smiles shyly at him and shuffles towards the sofa with his mug of tea still in hand. “What do you feel like watching?”

“You pick.”

“Oh, so you’re not gonna rally for One Piece today, hyung?” Juyeon snickers. Jaehyun shoves him half-heartedly in the ribs, but settles down beside him anyway. Like a cat, Juyeon stretches, all impossibly long limbs and low-timbre rumbling, before folding his arms and legs onto the sofa.

Juyeon picks something, and really, it could be anything with how fundamentally disinterested Jaehyun is in the show itself. The colours are mellow though and the characters’ voices evenly pitched, and soon, Jaehyun notices that Juyeon’s breath is slowing down beside him.

Taking a chance, he glances over, only to find Juyeon’s long lashes fluttering intermittently as his eyes struggle to stay open. He’s about to tease Juyeon, maybe jab at him for picking a boring show now that Jaehyun’s brain has finally decided to come out of mortification-induced hiding, but then—

Then Juyeon’s head nudges gently at Jaehyun’s shoulder, and settles into the dip between his neck and his knobbly bone. It’s too soft to be an accident, Jaehyun knows, and the suddenly still breath, the silence that washes over them, only affirm this realisation.

It’s not revolutionary, or at least it shouldn’t be. Jacob has put his head on Jaehyun’s shoulder more times than he can count at this point, and Chanhee has a propensity to fall all over them too when he laughs. And yet, something in this moment feels gilded, weighty even, and Jaehyun wishes his next exhale wasn’t so shaky but perhaps Juyeon’s is too and the moment settles like a blanket of snow — perfect and pristine.

The silence around them is of the muffled sort, the kind that you only get when there are layers and layers of snow to insulate the quiet.

The two of them, they stay like that.

As the minutes trickle on, snowflakes on that thick chiffon, Juyeon’s chest regains its steady rise and fall. His breaths grow less tremulous, his head heavier, and when the little analog clock Juyeon bought years ago from a night market with a Hello Kitty on its face clicks almost-silently to signal that the time had become two in the morning, Jaehyun realises Juyeon has fallen asleep.

It’s ironic, perhaps, that Jaehyun has always considered himself emotionally well-adjusted. Not prone to fits of panic or stress or outpouring of emotion. It’s ironic that in twenty five years, he’s cried as many times as he has fingers, and yet in the last month, something torrential and relentless has been sweeping through him and most days Jaehyun barely knows how to keep his head above water.

It comes and comes: emotion, all murky and heavy. In his mind’s eye, Jaehyun sees the untouched swathes of snow beneath his feet grow sullied and muddy, but there’s no changing it, not when the pool of grey melted ice grows bigger yet under his shoes, and so he runs with a trail of prints as dark as they are inevitable chasing him, utterly indivisible from his person.

Jaehyun slips his shoulder out from underneath Juyeon, lays that cherry head of hair gently against the sofa with the odd taste of blood in his mouth.

He’s back in bed and forcing his eyes firmly shut before he even begins allowing himself to miss the warmth of Juyeon’s head against his collarbone.  
  


* * *

  
“Hey, did I tell you? I saw Juyeon hyung the other day in Itaewon,” Sunwoo says, scrolling through their setlist. Wednesday afternoons are always thankfully slow, and Jaehyun takes a moment to break out of his post-lunch stupor to turn and look at him.

“When? Saturday?”

“Yep. Outside that really fancy, ritzy place. Si.Wha.Dam?”

Jaehyun grunts, a small surge of irritation under his skin at the mere mention of Saturday, but Sunwoo doesn’t seem to take the hint.

“He looked nice,” he goes on. “Was he on a date or something? The guy he was with was hot.”

The low-level buzz of annoyance flares at the mere mention of Sungmin - hot? please - but then Sunwoo’s words register and Jaehyun rears up to stare at his friend. “Wait. You- I didn’t know you were…”

He trails off, unsure if Sunwoo wants to have this kind of conversation in the workplace, even as something odd and glossy like _hope_ wells up in his ribcage.

Sunwoo’s eyebrows furrow and he, too, turns. “What?” he asks, perplexed. When he sees the tongue-tied expression on Jaehyun’s face, his brow clears. “Oh, gay? I’m not. I mean, I’m open to that changing, but for now I’m not.”

Hope dissolves, sugar in water.

“Oh,” Jaehyun says. “Right.”

Sunwoo makes a funny face. “My sexuality isn’t so fragile that I can’t find someone of the same gender attractive,” he teases, phrasing it like that’s what Jaehyun had been implying to lighten the mood. Jaehyun smiles - one can always trust Sunwoo to read the room under that brash confidence and boyish humour - and the disappointment is replaced with fondness.

“Have you ever…” he trails off and fiddles with his ballpoint pen. “Have you ever wondered? If maybe you weren’t?”

Sunwoo’s eyebrows shoot up. “Straight? ‘Course I have,” he chuckles. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Jaehyun rears back. “What? No, I- I mean, _I_ haven’t.”

“Really?” Sunwoo asks surprisedly. “Huh. I guess Uiseong will do that to you. Not to be reductive or anything,” he adds like an afterthought. “I’m not trying to suggest you don’t know if you’re straight or not.”

“What do you mean?” Jaehyun asks curiously.

Sunwoo shrugs. “Y’know, that whole heteronormative, _men are this way, women are that, love is when a husband and wife get married_ shtick. It doesn’t really invite introspection into the possibilities of love and identity. We’re all just sheep-herded into believing we’re cut from the same cloth.”

Jaehyun’s always liked that about Sunwoo, how he’s blunt and to the point but never mean. He frowns and mulls his friend’s words over, pen unconsciously going into his mouth to chew on.

“Was it hard? Adjusting to…all of this?” Jaehyun asks, finally.

“All of what?”

“Seoul. LGBT stuff. The whole world of shit we never got exposed to at home,” Jaehyun gestures listlessly. “You make it seem so easy, like, you’ve always been from Seoul or something.”

Sunwoo laughs then and spins around in his chair. “You’re kidding, really?” he snickers. “No, hyung, it was fucking _hard_. I felt so lost when I first moved here for uni, and people were so mean when I didn’t know things or when I accidentally slipped into satoori. It was so alienating being made to feel like a bad person just cause I’d never learned about the stuff they were talking about.”

He sighs and leans back in his desk chair. “‘Course, after I got over the learning curve, then it was like I couldn’t really go back home without seeing a million and one things wrong with the way our parents or old friends talk. It sucks — it’s like you don’t belong here, but you don’t belong in Uiseong anymore either.”

Jaehyun nods slowly. “That…makes sense. I remember how conflicted noona was every time she came home throughout uni,” he murmurs. “She’d get so upset at our parents over stuff that seemed so inconsequential to me, but then she’d also talk about how homesick she was. I didn’t get it at the time.”

Sunwoo rubs his lips together and nods with large eyes. “Exactly! It’s hard,” he says. “What’s it been like for you, the whole adjusting thing? I’m sorry I never asked.”

Jaehyun waves him off. “You’re fine, I would’ve brought it up if I wanted to talk about it.” He runs his finger in aimless circles around the page of his notebook with tasks still left to do scribbled haphazardly over it. “I dunno, it wasn’t…easy, by any means. It’s like, I’ve had to rethink everything I’ve ever known, all my memories and stuff, in this new light.”

Sunwoo nods understandingly, and Jaehyun goes on. “But it hasn’t been bad either, at all really. Juyeon - he’s always really helped - and having you and other friends makes it better too. I’m glad, honestly, that I came out here. I’m glad I got to live in the capital before I settle back down in Uiseong-gun.”

His friend makes a noise of surprise, full lips falling open. “Oh you- you’re going back? Do you know when?”

Jaehyun shrugs. “Maybe after this year, or the one after. Have to settle down at some point right?”

Sunwoo rolls himself back to his desk, glancing at Jaehyun askance. “I don’t know, do you? I know I’m not going back.”

“Really?” Jaehyun intones, shocked. “Well- mm. I guess that makes sense? You’ve been out here for way longer than I have.” He too, rolls his chair back to the desk so that he can wiggle his mouse to bring the computer out of its energy-saving mode. “I don’t know, I think my parents would be really upset if I moved out here. Seoul was always a silly thing I wanted to do, but now that I’ve done it, I have to go back to being an adult at some point. Get married, find a steady job and all that.”

“Do you…want to go back?” Sunwoo asks tentatively.

Something a little bitter curls at the edges of Jaehyun’s smile. He chuckles, and it’s humourless even to his own ears. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? This is just the way it is. I told my parents I’d go home at some point, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

There’s a brief moment of silence, and it seems thick and ugly somehow as Jaehyun focuses firmly on the screen in front of him. His eyes are just beginning to smart with how hard he glares at the pixels when Sunwoo finally asks quietly, “What about your life here? Your friends? Juyeon hyung?”

Jaehyun whips around to stare at him. None of the words register except one. “Juyeon? What about him?” he asks, and there’s something simultaneously taunting and stricken in his voice. “He’s my friend right now, and maybe we’ll stay friends or maybe we won’t, but do friends _stay with you in sickness and in health until the very end?_ ”

It’s a phrase his parents often repeat when they emphasise the importance of a wife for Jaehyun and a husband for Jiwoo. _Friendships are nice, but they don’t last in the end_ , his mother always says. _Family is the first essential cell,_ his father always says.

Sunwoo makes a noise of protest. “But—”

“No, friends don’t. Family does. Family is the only thing that lasts, and family is Uiseong,” Jaehyun barrels on, an invisible grip on his throat and a heaviness in his chest.

Sunwoo doesn’t say anything more on the subject for the rest of the day.  
  


* * *

  
Jaehyun has never seen their little Sinchon apartment so utterly on the brink of overflow. It’s not even like there are that many people — he and Juyeon can hardly be categorised as social butterflies, but with the combination of their friends, Jaehyun’s co-workers slash friends-ish, and any odd acquaintances that happened to tag along, Jaehyun is finding the flat rather overflowing with bodies.

It’s nice, really. It’s sweet that Juyeon and Jacob planned this all for Jaehyun’s birthday - his first birthday in the city, no less - and took into account everything he might want.

Today is a Saturday, and at midnight, Jaehyun is turning twenty six.

Someone jostles into him as he stands by the kitchen island near the door, and Jaehyun turns, beer in hand, to find Sunwoo tentatively walking in. Sunwoo’s face lights up when he sees Jaehyun.

“Hyung! Happy birthday!” he crows, throwing his arms around him. “Jesus, you’re really putting those years on. On the brink of becoming geriatric!”

“Yah! You’re such a little—”

“ _Sunwoo_ ,” a soft voice to their left urges. “You can’t just say that to people.”

Sunwoo unlatches himself from around Jaehyun and turns brightly to the person who had come in with him. “Jaehyun hyung, this is Changmin hyung — they’re my roommate I was telling you about.”

Changmin smiles tentatively at Jaehyun from behind trendy clear-framed glasses, and the sudden appearance of dimples on their face catches Jaehyun off guard.

“Hi, it’s so nice to meet you,” Jaehyun smiles at them. They exchange polite bows and then Sunwoo is tugging at Changmin’s delicate wrist.

“Cool, see ya later,” he says jauntily to Jaehyun. “C’mon noona, _free booze_.” Changmin smacks him in the arm and tries to shoot Jaehyun an apologetic look that is absolutely _devastatingly_ cute on their small face.

Jaehyun rolls his eyes amicably but waves them off with a smile as he sips at his rapidly warming beer. It’s just too damn hot in the flat, and Jaehyun can feel it everywhere from the slight moisture on his palms to the rapid sweating of his drink.

“Having fun?”

Jaehyun’s eyes flicker right to see Juyeon come over to him. His roommate leans against the wall, one long limb wrapped around himself as if to reduce the risk of taking up too much room, while the other holds a paper cup lazily to his lips _(“Of course we got paper cups, hyung, Jesus think of the carbon footprint if we had a whole party on plastic. What is this, 1989?”)_.

“Yeah, you?” Jaehyun grins. “Thanks for organising this by the way, I really—”

“Oh my god, if I have to hear you say you really appreciate it _one more time_ ,” Juyeon groans painfully up to the ceiling. “We’re roommates. Friends. I’m inebriated enough that I’d even go so far as to say you’re probably my _best friend._ It’s _fine_.”

Suddenly, the beer in Jaehyun’s mouth doesn’t taste like the slightly bitter, on-the-brink of warm IPA he thought he’d been drinking. Suddenly, it feels like he’s swallowing liquid joy, and something inexplicably warm bursts against his solar plexus.

In Uiseong, when he was a child, every summer he’d run around with Jiwoo and his neighbours catching fireflies. He remembers how the lightning bugs would rest, just so, in his palms — neither afraid nor nervous to be caught. Watching the way they lit up against those clear night skies, like thousands and thousands of tiny stars dancing through the air, Jaehyun had wondered at seven years of age if he’d ever be this happy again.

It feels like someone had caught all those fireflies and set them loose in his chest, so real that he thinks if he listens closely, he can almost hear the susurrus of their wings against his ribcage.

Instead, he lets his mouth tug itself into the shape of a smile.

“Best friends, huh?” he asks quietly. His lip gets caught between his teeth before he remembers Jiwoo’s years of scolding (S _top biting! This is why you always bleed, Jaehyunie!)._

Juyeon looks at him askance, eyes hazy and bright all at once.

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “I’d say so.”

Before Jaehyun can respond, Jacob is crowding into him. “Jaehyun! Come karaoke,” he wheedles. Jaehyun’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm.

“Oh no, I couldn’t, I’m still—”

“I know you’re not still eating because I saw you polish off a whole bucket of chicken, like, twenty minutes ago,” Jacob points out. “C’mon, Kev’s too busy dancing and I wanna do IU! No one does IU like you n’ me.”

And when Jaehyun looks closer, maybe Jacob is a little tipsy too, his cheeks all pink from the soju Jaehyun had seen him taking shots of earlier. So instead of resisting any longer, he shoots Juyeon an apologetic look and mutters, “Fine, fine, but _BBIBBI_ first okay?”

So Jaehyun goes, and the beer is perhaps hitting him a little more now because it’s so easy to scream-sing, unhindered into the karaoke machine Jacob and Kevin had rented just for his birthday, but every time he looks over to Juyeon, he sees him smiling, sparkling and endlessly handsome.

It’s when he’s tipsily making his way through the revolutionary ballad, _My Old Story_ \- Jacob had disappeared at some point to aggressively shove his tongue down Kevin’s throat, and if Jaehyun thinks about it, it’s almost like he’s serenading them like a movie soundtrack, so he’s _not_ going to think about it - that someone knocks right into him.

“— _foreverrrr-_ woah-! What—”

“Jaehyunie.” Chanhee manages to find the perfect balance between solemnity and screaming into his ear, and Jaehyun is momentarily so caught off guard that he doesn’t even bemoan the lack of honourifics. “You didn’t tell me you could sing.”

Chanhee turns and reaches out into the mass of people gathered in the living room, emerging victorious a moment later when a golden wrist is caught in his slender hand. “Juyeon-ah!” he admonishes. “Why didn’t you tell me hyung could sing?”

Juyeon stares back at him, eyes a little misty from the beer he’s been sporting. “Huh? I did,” he says bewildered.

“No, I would’ve remembered that.”

Juyeon frowns. “I definitely did!” he cries. “Remember? We were waiting outside the cinema for _Parasite_ and _I_ said, ‘Hey, I heard hyung singing in the shower, he’s really good,’ and then _you_ said, ‘Juyeon-ah, cheese or caramel popcorn?’”

Chanhee’s perfect brow puckers for a moment before his face clears. “Oh! Right, and we picked half-half, and I ignored your comment because clearly your judgement is impaired by your _elephantine_ —”

He cuts himself off abruptly. Jaehyun’s eyes flicker from Chanhee’s sucked in cheeks to Juyeon’s befuddled expression and then back again to Chanhee who looks increasingly like he’d accidentally sucked on a lemon. “What?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Jaehyun’s head jerks back. “No, come on—”

“Do you want to join my a cappella group?”

Jaehyun does a cartoon-worthy spit take sans spit. “ _Huh?_ ”

Chanhee sighs, like Jaehyun is behaving particularly insufferably. “Do you want to join my a cappella group? We meet Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons.”

He does his best not to look dubious, really, he does, but Jaehyun is more than a little drunk and that means his candour is at an all-time high. “Uh…I don’t know if a cappella is really for me.”

Chanhee makes a face. “We don’t wear matching outfits if that’s your main concern, nor do we syncopate every other note.” When Jaehyun doesn’t seem convinced, he adds, “And we keep fresh-concept pop songs to a minimum.”

“Great, I’ll see you on Wednesday,” Jaehyun smiles beatifically. It's a snap second decision, but the truth is, he’s been missing music more than ever recently. Even surrounded by it every day as he is during work and at home on Juyeon’s speakers that he keeps stealing to his own room, there’s a persistent itch under his skin to _make_ music of his own.

Chanhee gapes and then grabs Jaehyun’s shoulders. “What! Oh my god, they’re going to be so excited, we’ve been short a tenor for ages,” he says excitedly. His blonde hair flops attractively over his forehead, but Chanhee tosses it out of his eyes gracefully. “I’ll text you the details, this is so great!”

A large hand sneaks its way to Jaehyun’s wrist and squeezes gently. Jaehyun looks away from Chanhee’s beaming expression to see Juyeon offering him a gentle grin, his gaze dancing with amusement and excitement.

The moment is broken when Chanhee claps Jaehyun on the shoulder once more and announces, “Alright that was very fun, I’m gonna go. There’s a cute little creature ‘round here somewhere with clear-framed glasses that I absolutely have to kiss before I go home.”

And then he’s off, graceful and ethereal, like a baffling yet undeniably flippant woodland sprite, and Jaehyun is left standing with Juyeon.

“I think your next song’s about to start,” Juyeon points out gently, fondness colouring his features in petal pink and June apricot. Jaehyun bobs his head heavily.

“Right you are,” he mumbles. “Best friend.”

Juyeon bites his lip and grins.

“Bee-eff-eff,” Jaehyun leers drunkenly. “Bosom buddies. B- hm.” He shakes his head and tries to come up with another synonym while politely ignoring the unattractive sniggers Juyeon is trying to hide into his fist.

“Kev!” he shouts. Kevin detaches his face from the suction cup that is Jacob’s mouth, and Jaehyun notes with distaste that he has cranberry coloured lipstick smeared all the way down his jaw and throat. “What’s another word for best friend?”

Kevin pauses to think for a moment even as Jacob continues to do his best impression of a leech all the way down his pale neck. “Bestie?” he offers.

“Bestie!” Jaehyun crows. “Right you are, _bestie_.”

Juyeon groans, and he looks tortured and endeared all at once. “You are unbearable when you’re drunk,” he comments.

Jaehyun shoots him finger guns, then rides the high notes of IU’s impeccable bridge in her hit single _Good Day_ into the metaphorical sunset.  
  


* * *

  
It’s close to 1 AM by the time everyone leaves. Juyeon and Jaehyun are tiredly cleaning up bin bags full of disposed cups and paper plates while Jaehyun’s ice cream cake melts steadily away on their counter.

He catches sight of it, wilted and puddle-like, and eyes it with distaste. Fuck it, he thinks, and grabs a clean spoon and shoves a mouthful down his dry throat. “This is the problem with ice cream cake,” he announces. “Unreliable.”

Juyeon glances up from where he’s sweeping discarded streamers and paper hats into the recycling bin. “And yet you were adamant,” he says wryly. “They don’t even sell Baskin Robbins ice cream cakes in the store near us, I had to make this one. With my own two hands.” Jaehyun rolls his eyes.

“Yes, but it’s my birthday, I can’t be tasked with something as mundane as logistics.”

Juyeon chuckles, but doesn’t respond further, and the two of them settle once more into quiet. At some point, when Jaehyun is swiping up the last of the fried chicken into his mouth - greasy and cold but still so _unbelievably_ good - Juyeon disappears into his room. He's about to make a joke about being left in the throes on his own day of birth when his roommate emerges with a brown paper wrapped box.

‘Wrapped’ is maybe too polite a word to describe the limp yet crumpled form of the paper.

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow and Juyeon squirms sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s not very elegantly- sorry. It was an extra 5,000 won for wrapping at the store, so I was all, ‘No thank you,’ and the cashier gave me this look and I got huffy and defensive except I forgot my hands are basically glorified meat patties with how bad I am at fiddling with small things, so yeah. Sorry.”

The tips of his ears have been growing steadily redder, and Jaehyun realises with a pang that Juyeon is _nervous_. If endearment had a taste it would be piping hot jam on the stove, bubbling and sticky sweet. 

“Gimme,” he says, making a grabby gesture. He takes a last bite of fried chicken before wiping his hands quickly on spare bit of tissue.

Juyeon hands the box over, and Jaehyun is surprised to find how heavy it is in his arms. “What is this, Juyeon-ah?” he asks curiously. “I really didn’t expect you to get me anything.”

Juyeon just shrugs and busies himself with a stray streamer that is hanging flaccidly from the ceiling. “Jus’ open it,” he mumbles, looking like he’s torn between smiling and grabbing the box and disappearing to Cuba with it.

Jaehyun’s hands tighten on his gift when he sees the second emotion take over, and he bares his teeth a little in warning. Juyeon rolls his eyes but turns redder yet.

The box is too heavy to hold in one hand and unwrap properly, so Jaehyun ambles over to the sofa to plop down and unwrap his gift like the civil human being he is. As he does so, Juyeon shifts from foot to foot, looking for all intents and purposes like a child denied a bathroom break.

When the crude wrapping falls away, bundles of tape and scrunched corners alike, Jaehyun’s mouth falls open too. There’s a lump in his throat, from the residual grease of the chicken or emotion, he can’t tell, but he runs slightly trembling fingers anyway across the printed cardboard of the box, feeling the glossy surface under his nails.

“You got me a record player?” he asks, and his voice is undeniably thick. “But this must’ve been so expensive, how did you—”

Juyeon exhales quickly enough out of his nose that it sounds almost like a chuckle and rocks back on his heels. “You like it?” he asks shyly.

Jaehyun doesn’t really have the words, and for a moment he panics that he might seem ungrateful but Juyeon — Juyeon always seems to know.

“I remember you mentioning that it was the best one,” he goes on softly, earnestly. “I hope the colour’s okay, I still have the receipt so we can go back and change it if you don’t like the walnut—”

“Juyeon-ah.” Jaehyun’s voice sounds a little desperate even to his own ears, heavy with grease or emotion, he can’t tell. “Juyeon-ah, please stop talking. Please- this is the _best_ gift I’ve ever gotten, I don’t even have the _words_. Please.”

He blinks, all twitchy and nervous, barely held together by frail seams, at Juyeon who only smiles this lovely hopeful thing with big shiny eyes.

“Really? I’m so glad, I was so worried it wouldn’t be something you found useful, but- I’m so glad,” he says again. Bashfully, like he thinks Jaehyun might say no, he asks, “There’s a music store that sells records ten minutes away, do you- I mean, would you want to go tomorrow? Together?”

Jaehyun is nodding before the words form on his tongue.

“Yes. Absolutely, yes, let’s go.”

The next morning, as the sun swims gently up the sky and the first chill of autumn descends over Seoul like an old friend, Jaehyun and Juyeon throw on jackets and walk, knuckle-against-knuckle, to the record store.

It’s hard to say exactly how long they’re there for, when time seems to bleed into the crooning of soft music from the speakers they try different records on so that all Jaehyun knows is the sound of vinyl crackling and the flax of sunlight drenching the CDs by the window.

It’s Sunday, and the day is warm with the barest crispness in the air; Jaehyun can’t tell where the refrain ends and Juyeon’s laughter begins, and today he is twenty six.  
  


* * *

  
“I’ll send you my train ticket details, I bet the seat next to mine is still free,” Jaehyun says to Sunwoo as they exit the building.

Sunwoo makes a face. “No way, for Chuseok? I’d be surprised if they weren’t all booked up already.”

Jaehyun tuts, “I hardly think there will be a mass exodus out of Seoul to Uiseong-eup of all places, Sunwoo-ya. Just check tonight, it’d be nice to do the four hours with a friend instead of alone.”

As they near the security turnstiles, however, they hear —

“I’m just not convinced it makes sense from a cultural-evolutionary standpoint to stymie art by dismissing everything ever created by someone we’ve retroactively deemed flawed.”

Jaehyun frowns and glances at Sunwoo who looks equally puzzled. The voice floating across the network building’s main lobby sounds awfully familiar, but there’s no reason for—

“Juyeon?” Jaehyun steps through the turnstiles and hurries over.

Juyeon looks up from where he’s debating passionately with Chanhee and shoots Jaehyun a blinding smile. “Oh hi, hyung,” he greets, like he’s not the one standing outside of Jaehyun’s place of work, like they’ve just _casually_ run into each other on the street. In the back of his mind, he’s vaguely aware of Sunwoo’s fingerprint not reading properly on the scan-pad, but he can’t really keep track of that right now.

“Uh…what’re you doing here?”

Juyeon smiles and slings his messenger bag higher on his shoulder. It’s a ghastly thing - according to Kevin and Chanhee at least - all worn leather and frayed thread, but Jaehyun privately found it rather charming the one time all of their friends decided to rip on Juyeon for being a glorified elbow-patch-tweed-clad cliché.

Anyway.

“Chanhee stopped by my office and said he was coming to meet you before a cappella so I figured I’d make the trip over too,” he says. “I’ve been cooped up all day, the train ride was such a nice break.”

Before Jaehyun can respond, Sunwoo, who’s finally caught up from the turnstiles, catapults himself into Juyeon’s body. “Hyunggg, you didn’t even see me, did you?” he whines, even as their combined weight balances entirely on Juyeon’s spindly (read: muscular) legs.

A surprised laugh bursts out of Juyeon and his long arms wrap around Sunwoo’s slighter frame fondly. “Sorry Sunwoo-ya,” he says teasingly. “Won’t happen again.”

“I find your hero worship of my roommate slash friend very off-putting,” Jaehyun points out dispassionately with a finger.

Sunwoo sticks his tongue out, but his response is cut short when Chanhee echoes dryly from beside Juyeon, “Hear hear.”

Sunwoo freezes, legs still awkwardly wrapped around Juyeon’s shins, and then, like he’s been electrocuted, he jumps off of Jaehyun’s roommate and rights himself quickly on the shiny lobby floor.

“Oh,” he says awkwardly. “I didn’t realise- I didn’t see you. Sorry Chanhee-ssi.”

“Hi, puppy,” Chanhee purrs. Both Jaehyun and Juyeon’s faces scrunch in simultaneous revulsion.

“ _Never_ say that in my vicinity again—”

“Chanhee, what the fuck—”

“Hi,” Sunwoo grits out with a bright red face. “Are you well, Chanhee-ssi?”

Jaehyun and Juyeon blink.

Chanhee smiles, something a little barbed and dangerous. “I’m so good, I’m so glad to see you again,” he coos. “I was just thinking about your last impression of me and, lo and behold, here you are!”

“What’s happening…?” Juyeon asks slowly, looking concernedly between Sunwoo and Chanhee.

Sunwoo, who is steadily turning a mottled aubergine colour, snaps, “Nothing.”

Chanhee leans on Jaehyun’s shoulder and chuckles. “ _So_ cute. Sunwoo and I—”

“I walked in on him fucking my roommate, okay, which is great so now what’s for dinner and has anyone seen any good movies lately?” Sunwoo babbles. He grabs Juyeon’s wrist as if to make for the other direction, but Juyeon and Jaehyun are already laughing surprisedly.

“Wait what? You—?”

Chanhee loops a finger in one of Sunwoo’s belt holes and tugs him closer. Sunwoo makes a sound like a startled seagull and goes tumbling into Chanhee’s space.

“Aw, were you jealous?” Chanhee bops him on the nose. “‘Cause you know you could’ve just said something if you were. I don’t mind showing you the ropes.”

If Jaehyun were a bad friend, he might say that Sunwoo looks equal parts petrified and aroused and rib him about it endlessly. As it is, he’d like to be a good hyung, and so for a moment deeply contemplates helping to extricate Sunwoo from Chanhee’s manicured grasp.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sunwoo blusters on. “You and Changmin noona, I don’t- _no._ Gross.”

Like the cat that caught the canary, Chanhee lets his prey go, if only to give the game some semblance of equality. “Shame. Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind,” he croons. He turns to Jaehyun and smiles benignly. “We should go, rehearsal starts soon.”

“Sunwoo, uh, do you want to go grab a drink? Maybe cool down?” Juyeon offers a little flaccidly to the still red-faced man.

“Yep, yep, definitely,” Sunwoo mutters quickly, readjusting his jacket over his shoulders. The two of them make to leave and Jaehyun calls out quickly, “Don’t forget Chuseok train tickets!”

Sunwoo waves his hand in response. As they walk away, Sunwoo still throwing furtive looks back to Chanhee, Jaehyun can hear him whisper feverishly to Juyeon, “You need less terrifying friends, hyung, I don’t think Chanhee-ssi is a good role model.”

Juyeon’s mild response back - _You know, people often misattribute fear to arousal, but it seems the opposite may be possible too_ \- makes Chanhee cackle.

Jaehyun elbows him in the ribs.  
  


* * *  
  


A cappella rehearsals, Jaehyun has learned, looks both very much like they do in the movies and very much _not_ like they do in the movies. On the one hand, there’s exactly as many “shoowap!”s and “doo-doob”s as one might expect, but there are far more vocal warm-ups, far more techniques to blending in with the group, far more _everything that requires actual skill that Jaehyun isn’t sure he has_ than he’d been led to believe.

By the time rehearsal has finished, his throat hurts and he gratefully accepts the spare bottle of water Chanhee offers to him. It surprises Jaehyun more than it should, perhaps, that Chanhee had thought to pack an extra for him.

“Thanks—” he begins to say, a little awkwardly perhaps, but Chanhee waves him off with his ears tinged pink.

“S’fine.”

There’s a brief moment of silence, and then Jaehyun snorts with laughter.

“What?” Chanhee asks, looking a little cross but mostly embarrassed.

“You just grunted at me. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you grunt,” Jaehyun points out with a chuckle between more sips. Chanhee’s head rears back.

“Gr- what? No I didn’t, shut- no I didn’t,” he sputters. “See if I ever bring you water again.”

Jaehyun snickers, then coughs, the dryness in his throat catching up to him once more. “Jesus, does this happen to you too?” he asks with a slight wheeze. “I feel like the Sahara’s in my throat.”

Chanhee shrugs as they walk out of the building and into the cooling night air. The studio isn’t too far from Jaehyun’s apartment, only a few train stops away, and he’s excited to get home, maybe see Juyeon curled up on the sofa with a book and let him make Jaehyun a cup of tea.

“When I first started, yeah,” Chanhee says, in response to Jaehyun’s question. “It gets better after a while though, especially when you start coming to rehearsal regularly. When was the last time you sang?”

Jaehyun whistles low. “Not for years, since high school I think, which makes it, what, eight years? Shit.”

Chanhee splays his palms upwards as if to say _you see_. “It’ll pass, especially if you come to rehearsal regularly. You did well today, your voice blends really nicely.”

Jaehyun shrugs awkwardly. “Ah, that was- uh, mm. Are all those songs gonna make it to the summer showcase?”

“No, none of them actually.” At Jaehyun’s look of surprise, Chanhee explains, “We ran through old songs from our repertoire today, so it’d be easier to see how you fit in. We’ll start on new material on Sunday, I’ll send you the score sheets.”

Jaehyun nods and scuffs his heels against the pavement as they walk leisurely towards the train station. Chanhee lives in Ichon, which means they’ll ride the same train for one stop until he has to change lines. It’s nice, Jaehyun thinks, having someone to chat casually about this or that on the short walk from their booked auditorium in Hanyang University to the station.

“Do you have Chuseok plans?” he asks.

Chanhee shrugs and adjusts the leather clutch under his arm. “Not sure yet, I was gonna go home to Daegu but my parents might just come up instead seeing as the rest of the family are here.”

He’s referring, Jaehyun knows, to the fact that he lives in the same building as his uncles and aunts. Chanhee comes from a small family of very well-connected moguls in the magazine industry, and is arguably the most well-off one out of their little group of friends.

“That’s nice,” Jaehyun offers in response. “At least you don’t have to do the whole train ride back, and on Chuseok no less.”

Chanhee chuckles. “Yeah, that would be a _huge_ perk, honestly. Although I miss Daegu a little,” he adds like an afterthought.

“Was it hard? When you first moved here?” Jaehyun asks. He’s always wondered.

His friend shrugs. “Kinda. Seoul has the unique ability of making people from outside of it feel like complete aliens. Even though I had family here when I came, it still felt weird sometimes. Seoul’s a lot bigger than Daegu,” he says with a wry smile.

Jaehyun huffs out a laugh. “Right. Were—” he breaks off as they enter the train station and swipe their passes. The station isn’t too busy, thankfully, for a Wednesday night, and Jaehyun and Chanhee make their way to the platform without having to jostle their way through the disparate bodies already there waiting. “Sorry. Were your parents nervous about letting you move out on your own?”

“Not really,” Chanhee says thoughtfully. “They were way less fussed about me moving to Seoul than they were about me trying to open up my first salon.”

“Oh?”

Chanhee makes a face. “They were all, ‘Why’re you throwing away a perfectly good career in the family business blah blah blah’ and, ‘If you’re going to faff around you may as well come back to Daegu blah blah blah.’ You know, the usual charming parental tirade.”

Jaehyun snickers and squeezes Chanhee’s arm in fond commiseration. “That sucks, I’m sorry,” he chuckles. “I think my parents kind of think the same thing right now, like this is just my one year of sowing all my wild oats before I settle back down in Uiseong.”

Chanhee’s eyebrows fly up. “Oh, you’re going back then? Isn’t the music industry here?”

“Probably,” Jaehyun says, as they board the train. “And yeah, the music industry’s here, but this was, I dunno, a childhood dream I got to live out. Do you know how hard it is to make it in the music industry? I’m lucky I have a job tangential to it at all.”

The two of them sway a little on their feet when the train speeds out of the station, and Chanhee calls over the rumble, “My parents said the same thing to me when I told them I wanted to start my own line of salons. They were pretty unsupportive at first, but I couldn’t live my life for them, y’know? And they changed their tune pretty quick once I started making actual profit on my first venture.”

Jaehyun turns to look at Chanhee surprisedly. “Really? They just gave in like that?” He tries to keep his voice low, acutely aware of the fact that no one else is talking on the train as is custom, but Chanhee seems to have no such reservations.

His friend shrugs again, nonchalant and elegant under the garish subway light. “You’d be surprised by the power of material success,” he says with a wry smile. “And parental love of course. Sometimes I think we don’t give them enough credit.”

Jaehyun’s mouth opens and shuts as he tries to think of a response, but then the train is slowing down and the cool, robotic voice of the station announcement is ringing through the intercom.

“This is me,” Chanhee says with a smile. The two of them hug quickly before Chanhee darts off the train. “I’ll text you the scores, get home safe!”

Jaehyun waves and pulls his earphones out of his pocket. They’re a little tangled up, but not so much that a well-practiced shake doesn’t loosen the knot, and Jaehyun finds his finger trailing down the screen to play a song they’d rehearsed as a group today.

As the opening cords play, and Jaehyun’s gaze drifts into that slightly blurred out stare, he replays how it felt to sing with all those strangers and Chanhee by his side. He’s not the most poetic person, not verbally anyway — it gets into an uncomfortable territory of sticky feeling that Jaehyun is most decidedly not a fan of. But music? Notes and cords and arpeggios and scales, all of that he understands at the base of his spine, at the tips of his fingers.

Jaehyun remembers being eight and joining the school choir, how the reverberations of twenty childish voices in their school auditorium had coursed through him and made him shiver. Jaehyun remembers being fourteen and listening to the score for _The House Finch_ , Man Youngho’s incredible debut into cinematic composing, how each whisper of a bow against strings had felt in his temples and tongue.

Jaehyun remembers all of this, and wonders, not for the first time since moving to Seoul, if leaving it - Seoul, music, _Juyeon_ \- would really be as easy as he’d made it seem.  
  


* * *

  
There comes a time in every young South Korean man’s life when he must confront the monolith that is the family unit. Jaehyun knows this. He just didn’t expect to have to face his Everest so soon.

“Eomma, I don’t think I can fit any more bags,” Jaehyun cringes on the phone. He changes the camera of his video call to the back camera so that his mother can take in the full travesty that is the ten bags of hot Cheetos puffs Jaehyun is valiantly trying to stuff into his duffel. “I’m not gonna have any space for underwear,” he whines. “Please don’t make me give up underwear.”

“Tsk, why do you need to bring underwear home when you have underwear here, Jaehyun-ah?” his mother asks crossly. “I told all my friends I’d have you bring those back, I won’t have enough if you only bring back five!”

“Well what’d you do that for?” Jaehyun complains. “All that sodium? And all the underwear I left at home is from when I was, like, thirteen, eomma. None of it’s gonna fit!”

His mother clicks her tongue impatiently. “Have you punctured holes in all the bags yet?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Punctured holes- really, it’s like you're not even my son,” she grouses. “Put holes in all the bags and then seal it with kitchen clips — you do have those right? You have kitchen clips?”

“Yes, yes, eomma, Jesus Christ,” Jaehyun groans. “Look, I have to go okay, I have—”

“Always running off like that, you have no compassion for my poor feelings! Fine, go, don’t forget to layer the Cheetos between your clothes so they don’t get crushed.”

Jaehyun gets an air kiss from his mother and then she’s gone, the screen displaying his call log once more. _27 minutes_ , it says — had it really been that short? Jaehyun pinches his nose bridge and stares helplessly at his open duffel bag.

A knock sounds at his door, and then it opens a fraction. “Hyung?”

“Come in, Juyeon-ah, don’t stand in the doorway like some vampiric beanstalk,” he calls over his shoulder.

Juyeon pads in and throws himself onto Jaehyun’s bed, grey and blue striped duvet still rumpled from where he’d neglected to straighten it this morning.

“‘Vampiric beanstalk’ is new, hyung, did you come up with it on the fly?” he teases. Jaehyun shoots him a dark look over an armful of cheese puffs.

“Don’t test my patience right now,” he says gloomily. “I have to figure out how to fit ten bags of Cheetos into my duffel without sacrificing my balls to ten year old underwear.”

“Charming,” Juyeon remarks mildly. “You could poke holes into them and secure them—”

Jaehyun groans out loud. “Have you been talking to my mother?”

“No more than usual.”

“I can’t- wait what? What’s usual- _what?_ ”

Juyeon grins and grabs a bag from Jaehyun’s slightly limp arms. He fishes his mailbox key out of his back pocket and efficiently nicks a small hole in the corner to deflate the bag. “Don’t worry about it. She calls from time to time when you forget to text her back immediately. One time she called me in the middle of a lecture. It was pretty funny.”

Jaehyun gapes. “What? Tell her to piss off! Didn’t you say participation was fifteen percent of your grade?”

Juyeon laughs brightly and plucks another bag out of the pile. “I can’t believe you remembered that, you’re so thoughtful, hyung,” he coos facetiously. “It’s fine, I said I needed to use the bathroom. Dr. Choi was very understanding.”

“Right,” Jaehyun says disbelievingly. “Well, if she calls at an inconvenient time next time, you don’t have to answer.” He drops the other snack bags on the floor and settles himself beside them to systematically go about puncturing holes in the orange plastic. “Are you all packed for Chuseok?” he asks.

Juyeon shakes his head. “No need, I’m just going to my dad’s for dinner every night, maybe spend a couple lunches and afternoons with him too. Doesn’t make sense to stay over at his when I’m basically thirty minutes away.”

Jaehyun nods in understanding. Juyeon’s father lives in a service apartment in Jongno-gu, near enough that Juyeon feels obliged to see him every other weekend to have father-son lunches, but not so close that their lives don't feel somewhat separate. It’s a constant emotional negotiation for his friend, Jaehyun knows, and his eyes soften in spite of himself.

“Are you looking forward to it?” he asks, tone gentler than he had meant to make it if the way Juyeon’s eyes fly up to meet his is any indication. His roommate bites his lip and pulls absent-mindedly at his earlobe.

“Not…really? But then I feel shitty for not looking forward to it, and that’s worse somehow so…I don’t know,” he says slowly. “It is what it is, I guess. At least I’ll have time to catch up on some of the nature documentaries I’ve been saving up,” Juyeon adds wryly.

Jaehyun nods and his hands go still in spite of himself atop the chip bags. “Right. You know you can always call me if it gets unbearable, right?” he says softly. He doesn’t say that it’ll be okay, or that it might be better than Juyeon expects. Jaehyun has long since learned that Juyeon likes it when he’s honest, even blunt, instead of offering him downy platitudes.

Now, too, Juyeon smiles. “Thanks,” he says, eyes crinkling. “Are you excited to go home?”

“Yeah! Or, kinda. Yes, mostly. I’m excited to see my family,” Jaehyun qualifies carefully. “I’m…it feels weird leaving Seoul, for some reason. I don't really know what to do with that feeling.”

Juyeon nods slowly, finger trailing slowly over the ridges of the chip bag edge. “Why do you think that is?”

Jaehyun looks at him as he processes, at the curve of Juyeon’s mouth caught in elegant contemplation, the warmth glowing in his sloe-eyed gaze. His eyelids are a little uneven today, something that happens to him occasionally when he sleeps poorly or if he’s had too many salty snacks the night before, and it’s unerringly charming under the dark line of his eyebrows.

Jaehyun shakes himself a little, before responding, “I don't know. I always defined myself so much by where I was from - Uiseong boy, that was _me_ , right? - but…I don’t know what that means as much anymore. Uiseong-eup is still home but I feel…different? now. Like maybe I make sense in Seoul, too.” He pauses. “You know?”

There’s something hesitant but guileless hovering around the edges of Juyeon’s eyes and lips, like he’s trying to hold something brilliant like joy back. His voice wavers a little when he speaks, minute tremors that Jaehyun might not notice if he didn’t know Juyeon’s voice like the back of his hand.

“Yeah. I know. I’m so—” Juyeon stops, visibly feeling the words in his mouth. “I think…I think you make sense in Seoul, too,” he says carefully, restrained but radiant somehow. “I think you make sense in Sinchon,” he adds, almost nervously. “Here, specifically.”

Jaehyun’s eyes flicker up to Juyeon’s, surprised and caught off guard. There’s some subtext here, he’s sure of it, some scribble of meaning threaded between words and conjunctions, but he can’t quite catch the end of it and it floats, gently, out from between his fingertips.

Even so, something that doesn’t need words opens in his chest. “Yeah?” he asks, unsure and hopeful. “You think so?”

Juyeon smiles then, nectar finally spilling out from fruit cut open, overflowing, overflowing, overflowing. “I do.”

He sounds sure - certain - and Jaehyun feels belonging solidify finally like a kernel of gold in the riverbed of his sternum.  
  


* * *

  
There’s something oddly evocative in stepping back on the train to Uiseong-eup. Maybe it’s the smell, or the way the fabric seats seem to suck in all the light around them, but either way, Jaehyun is for a moment catapulted back to that June day when he alighted the train to Seoul and left behind everything he’d ever known.

It takes him a second to recalibrate, and by the time he does, Sunwoo is already pushing past him and throwing his duffel bag down by his seat.

“Oh my god,” he groans. “Every year I pack too much, and every year I have shoulder pain because I pack too much.”

“So pack less,” Jaehyun says simply as he, too, throws himself onto the seat. A small cloud of _scent_ puffs up from the chair, and he grimaces at the stale odour.

Sunwoo shoots him an irritated look before shrugging off his jacket and dumping it onto the duffel beneath him, all without having his back detach itself from the seat.

“Are you excited to go home?” Jaehyun asks. “Your siblings must be excited to see you.”

Around a mouthful of Peppero biscuits - _when did he get the Peppero out? What?_ \- Sunwoo mumbles, “Sibling. Noona’s out of the country.”

“What?” Jaehyun frowns. “How did I not know that?”

Peppero-with-a-side-of-Sunwoo shrugs. “Eh, I’m an interesting guy, lotta thoughts floating ‘round the old noggin’. Want one?” This sentiment is punctuated with a spray of chocolate biscuit and a proffered box, and Jaehyun grimaces summarily with an accompanying shake of his head.

“You’re disgusting. Seriously, how have you not mentioned that Sunhwa noona left the _country?_ We literally see each other every day.”

“Hyung, dude, I don’t know, it just slipped my mind! She’s in Taiwan, she moved there with her wife like, two years ago,” Sunwoo gesticulates with wide innocent eyes.

Something short circuits in Jaehyun’s brain. “Her- oh. Congratulations,” he says. “I didn’t even know she had a girlfriend, that’s so great for them. Do your parents mind that they’re not coming home?”

Sunwoo shrugs. “Kinda, but it’s not like she has a choice. They don’t celebrate Chuseok in Taiwan, so what’re you gonna do, y’know?”

Jaehyun nods and they settle into a brief moment of silence. Underneath him, he can feel the intermittent ridges of the train tracks as the monorail speeds away from Seoul. It’s soothing in a way, the soft, steady jolts and the faint sound of Sunwoo chewing beside him.

At some point, after Sunwoo has finished his snack and is in the process of stuffing the box into the pouch attached to the seat in front of them, Jaehyun asks, “Is she - your sister - is she out to your parents? Like, do they know about her wife?”

Sunwoo shoots him a surprised look and withdraws his hands from the pouch. “She is, and they do. It was kind of a shit show for a while honestly, she hid it from them for a year.”

Jaehyun gapes. “What, her marriage?”

“Mhm,” Sunwoo nods with a browbeaten look. “It was messy when they finally found out.”

Jaehyun picks at his lips. “Fuck. That fucking sucks,” he says heavily.

Sunwoo sighs and leans back. “Yeah, it did. But it doesn't now, not so much anyway.” At Jaehyun’s inquiring look, he goes on, “I mean, ‘course my parents aren’t, like, the _most_ liberal about the whole thing, but they’re coming to terms with it. Me and my brother — we’ve been trying to explain stuff to them when they come and ask us, and noona’s so happy, you feel? So they’re not gonna deny her happiness or whatever just ‘cause they don’t get it yet.”

Jaehyun nods slowly, digesting and processing. “That’s…good. I’m glad things are better.” He hopes his platitude doesn’t sound too bland, that he’s conveyed somehow in six short words the depth of the words in his heart — _I’m glad she’s okay, you’re a good brother, I’m sorry she had to go through that_.

Sunwoo seems to understand - and Jaehyun is suddenly struck with the realisation that he’s lucky, so lucky to have finally found people who understand his stilted way with words - and smiles softly.

“Yeah, me too,” he says. “I’m gonna pass out for a bit, do you care?”

Jaehyun waves his hand in the universal rhetoric gesture for _please go ahead_ and watches as Sunwoo pulls out his headphones and settles into the window pane with a tired pout on his lips.

Outside the glass, the city rushes past them. In a startling turn of events, Jaehyun realises that going back to Uiseong-eup, while relieving in the way it is when, far away from home, one finds oneself suddenly catching a whiff of something that smells familiar, doesn’t exactly _feel_ like going home anymore. Not really.

Jaehyun presses earphones into his own ears and the gentle thrum of a small indie duo’s debut album fills his senses. He remembers scouting them for the podcast, remembers playing their music for their small team in the cramped meeting room.

They had all listened, quiet and intent the way they always were when someone brought an artist to the table, and when the album had played through and Jaehyun had turned off the speakers, one of the writers clicked her tongue and said, “City pop. It’s like listening to Seoul.”

City pop. Man Youngho had been pleased that day, happy about Jaehyun’s recommendation and excited to bring a fresh face to the network. _The music industry is so overworked, tired these days_ , he had complained. _This is the sort of exciting thing that we’re looking for._

It’s funny how “listening to Seoul” had become “listening to home” for Jaehyun. How did that happen? One day he had been describing the rustle of trees that seemed to send entire fields of wheat and crops into vibration to Juyeon, how there was nothing quite like waking up to chrysanthemum spilling into clear skies, and the next, lo-fi city pop soundscapes suddenly feel like waking up somewhere that has a space for you carved out perfectly, just there.

Juyeon had smiled, he remembers. His roommate had smiled when Jaehyun had spent all those hours talking about Uiseong and said _that sounds wonderful_ , with eyes full of sincere meaning and hanging onto Jaehyun’s every word like those ungainly syllables mattered. When, in the middle of all those smiles and late nights and summer-warmed mornings, had it all changed? he wonders.

The train hurtles its way south, closer and closer to Uiseong, farther and farther from Seoul. Jaehyun closes his eyes and lets the steady lurch and rock of the wheels on their tracks lull him to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of bibliographic notes - 
> 
> The House Finch is inspired by the movie 'House of Hummingbird', and the city pop duo that Jaehyun listens to at the end of the chapter is a duo called dosii (I really recommend their music, it's so soothing and lovely). 
> 
> Thank you for reading! As always, your comments and kudos mean the world to me (the feedback on Thursday's chapter absolutely blew me away, I'm so grateful for all of you). If you catch any spelling or grammatical errors, please let me know!
> 
> The next update will be on Thursday, 11th of March KST.
> 
> If you want to chat or get updates on my work, come find me on Twitter (link in profile)!
> 
> \- Anon


	4. IV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And still, neither of them say anything. 
> 
> What is there to say? The silence between them - between Jaehyun and his parents both - had grown too impenetrable it seems, layers of soil and gravel and bedrock piling on top of each other until the ground hardened and became barren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! Welcome back to chapter four. 
> 
> Trigger warnings in this chapter:
> 
> * Jaehyun's parents have age and upbringing-typical perceptions of heteronormativity as well as internalised homophobia. There is no explicit use of slurs and their behaviour largely stems from ignorance but please be aware.
> 
> * An instance of transphobia/purposeful misgendering. No slurs and it's somewhat brief but please proceed mindfully.
> 
> * Military-typical internalised homophobia and being in the closet in OC's. No slurs.
> 
> * Dismissive language towards mental health issues from Jaehyun's mother. 
> 
> Please be aware before proceeding with this chapter! Nothing is super explicit but protect yourselves. Although the TWs might suggest otherwise, it is generally a happy chapter. I hope you enjoy!

His whole family greets him at the train station like he’s a soldier returning from war. Jaehyun’s mother immediately latches on worriedly to the slight prominence of his cheekbones - _I knew you weren’t eating enough, didn’t I say I knew he wasn’t eating enough, yeobo?_ \- while his father stoically nods along and takes Jaehyun’s bag from him.

Jiwoo links her arm through his and immediately starts poking fun at his new hair colour - _wow, you look way more like an idol in person, do you have girls following you around the mall, Jaehyunie? My little brother, handsomest boy in Seoul_ \- and Jaehyun would pinch her if he wasn’t so distracted by the way Uiseong smells like a memory he thought he’d forgotten.

“Kim Sunwoo!” his mother suddenly calls. Jaehyun turns to see Sunwoo, who had been about to slip away, get haphazardly dragged into the fold by his mother. “I didn’t know you were coming home, it’s been so long since I last saw you! My, you’ve grown up awfully well,” she simpers.

“Thank you,” Sunwoo smiles sickeningly back. Jaehyun makes a gagging noise behind his mother’s head.

“Do you have a ride home, son?” his father asks.

“No worries, abeonim, my brother’ll be here soon,” Sunwoo says politely.

“Jaehyunie, why didn’t you tell me little Kim Sunwoo had gotten so handsome?” Jiwoo teases, still hanging off Jaehyun’s shoulder. Jaehyun has a retort hot on his lips when he sees Sunwoo’s eyes brighten.

“Noona, you’re one to talk,” he says, and maybe Jiwoo would call it charming but Jaehyun just thinks it’s _sleazy_ , so he interrupts loudly with a, “Okay now that we’ve all said our hello’s, I’d like to get home and spend time with _my_ family. _Alone_.” He directs the last word at Sunwoo who bares his teeth like a little animal in response.

“Alright, well, if you need a ride home give Jaehyun a call, yes?” his mother says before patting Sunwoo fondly on the face. “Such a sweet boy! It’s so nice to see you all grown.”

Having finally extricated his family, Jaehyun finds that, actually, going back to his parents’ house is remarkably seamless.

On the ride home, his parents ask him endless questions about the train, if he’s hungry, how work has been, why he looks so underfed. Even as he fields those questions, Jaehyun manages to see the spill of countryside rushing past their car window — everything so, so familiar. Vigorously so, even, like Uiseong had been waiting for him all this time.

When he steps through their front door, the smell of his childhood home fills every inch of his body. The dining room is still covered with photos of Jaehyun and Jiwoo as children. The living room ceiling lamp still has the one bulb out, still has all of Jiwoo’s affects tossed carelessly about their worn but loved furniture. Dinner, then a nighttime review of the dramas on their local TV channel, then saying goodnight — all of it, still very much the same and inexplicably sweet.

How silly of him to have dramatised the whole process, he thinks crossly as he lays himself down in the bed beside Jiwoo’s. His parents are the same, his bedroom is the same, Jiwoo is still - _unfortunately_ , he teasingly jabs in his head - very much the same, and Jaehyun feels a little bit like an idiot for getting all worked up about it.

His stomach is warm from his mother’s doenjang jigae, and the breeze that drifts in through their open windows smells like elm and dust.

Uiseong-eup is still home.  
  


* * *  
  


**Lee Jaehyun**

_How’s home?_

**Lee Juyeon**

_I should be asking you that!!_

_Home is good_

_Quiet obviously haha_

_You?? Are your parents  
_ _thrilled?_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Invariably_

_You forget how excellent  
_ _of a son I am, Juyeon-ah_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Oh ofc, my mistake, how  
_ _could I ever_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_See that it doesn’t happen again  
Did you guys call Youngjae?  
Make a big dinner?_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Yes to Youngjae, no to dinner  
We just did something small, it  
doesn’t make sense to cook  
so much for two people anyway_

_I gotta go soon, I said I’d go  
on a walk with my dad _

_He’ll probably take the  
opportunity to lecture me about  
_ _the dropping interest rates lol_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Sorry :/_

_Has he been doing that a lot?_

**Lee Juyeon**

_What, replacing emotional intimacy  
_ _with intellectual compartmentalisation?  
Why would you /ever/ think that???_

_Fuck sorry I didn’t mean to be  
caustic hyung_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Don’t apologise  
Want to see a picture of my  
neighbour’s puppy?_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Can’t believe ur only asking NOW_

_I have to go walk_

_Send it and I will respond  
when I return ok????_

_SEND IT_

_HYUNG_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_IM TRYING TO PICK THE  
_ _BEST ONE JUST HOLD ON_

 _FUCK HE LOOKS SO GOOD  
_ _IN ALL OF THESE_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Ah you’re so cute ^-^_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_[image.jpg; image2.jpg; image3.jpg]  
[image4.jpg; image5.jpg; image6.jpg]_

_Okay I picked the best 6_

_I will not have my hand  
_ _forced any further_

_Wanna call later?_

**Lee Juyeon**

_I WILL STEAL HIM FROM  
YOUR NEIGHBOURS_

_Don’t ask silly questions  
  
_ _Ofc I do  
  
_

* * *  
  


It’s only on his third day home that Jaehyun feels an inkling of what Sunwoo had mentioned about coming back to a city infinitely smaller than Seoul. Little things that Jaehyun had never noticed before mattering when they previously did not, and all that.

He mentions this to Jiwoo one afternoon when the sky is grey and the two of them are lying on their beds with their legs propped against the wall. It’s so painfully, achingly familiar that something twinges dully in Jaehyun’s chest as he watches her examine her split ends.

“I always thought people were exaggerating when they talked about the Korea outside of Uiseong-eup,” he says. “I thought it was all talk, but it’s not, right? I dunno, I’m so happy to be back, and it feels like I can breathe again a little but I also feel…out of place.”

Jiwoo looks up from her hair and nods solemnly. “Totally. I felt this way when I first came back too — remember how restless I was? It’s hard adjusting, it’s like you have to suddenly limit the scope of your vision by thirty percent or something.”

“Yeah!” Jaehyun exclaims, jolting up in his bed before settling down a little when he sees Jiwoo’s surprised expression. “Some of the stuff I never even noticed being a big deal or whatever, it all feels so weird and wrong sometimes.”

“Ooh,” Jiwoo throws her legs down and rolls so that she’s on her front. She fixes Jaehyun with an eager look. “Do tell me more, I love this new look for you.”

Jaehyun clicks his tongue at her theatrics but eagerly bites the bait. “Like, the way that lady from the post office was gossiping with eomma yesterday? In the supermarket? She was saying some super messed up stuff,” he marvels. “This whole speech about how girls these days are so careless when it comes to ‘dating’ — so slut-shamey?! What the hell is that about?”

Jiwoo nods keenly. “Right? Oh my god, it’s the worst, the misogyny in this town is exhausting.”

Jaehyun nods quickly and goes on. “And eomma and appa, they say some weird shit too? That thing on TV last night about the Democratic Party trying to introduce that same sex marriage bill, and they just _laughed._ And I heard them talking about how the government has gotten so ‘frivolous’ these days with their policies.”

His sister blows air out of her mouth and brushes the hair back from her face. “Yeah, eomma and appa are kinda homophobic, I’ve been saying this for years.”

At this, Jaehyun recoils, and something slams down in his brain.

“Woah, I- I mean, they’re not super knowledgeable about stuff but homophobic’s kind of an intense word, noona,” he says carefully.

Jiwoo fixes him with a look and huffs her fringe out of her eyes. “Don’t be dumb, Jaehyunie, call it what it is — they’re homophobic. Sure, it’s not their fault they grew up in another time and haven’t been educated, and yeah, they’re not, like, running around with pitchforks talking about LGBT people but also they are 100% homophobic. If you think being gay is an unfortunate illness, that’s what you are.”

Jaehyun’s neck feels oddly tight in that moment, and every inch of his body itches with a potent sort of discomfort. “Yeah, I know, you just- I dunno, don’t be so harsh with them. They’re our parents,” he mumbles.

His sister sighs and grabs his hand. “I know. And I know you have that whole hang-up with _hyodo_ —”

“Can you not call it a hang-up—”

“It’s a hang-up, Jaehyunie, seriously it’s like someone says _hyodo_ and your body starts vibrating. You should get it checked out, honestly,” Jiwoo says flatly. “I know you have a hang-up with it, but you know you’re not a bad son if you call our parents out on stuff right? You can acknowledge that a problem isn’t entirely their fault and still know that there’s a problem.”

She sits up properly and climbs onto Jaehyun’s bed to press their shoulders up against one another. “Listen, part of the reason I was so excited when you told me you wanted to move to Seoul is cause I wanted you to see the outside world. The way things are done here, they’re great most of the time and I love Uiseong, don’t get me wrong, but it should be your _choice,_ y’know? To stay here or do things the way they do them here, and I wanted you to have that. An informed choice.”

Jaehyun stares at his sister, feeling like he’s seeing her for the first time. Her eyes are wide and solemn as she regards him, and her fingers feel cool and familiar laced with his own. He sighs. It’s funny how you can know something, completely and wholly with your brain, but still feel like it’s entirely wrong in your heart. Incongruous.

Jaehyun bites back a smile — Juyeon would like that he used that word. Incongruous.

Out loud, he says, “I know. It definitely has been…I’ve had my mind changed about a lot of things. Things that I used to not think were important.”

Jiwoo gives him a knowing look. “It’s that roommate of yours, isn’t it?” When Jaehyun nods, she coos. “So soft! Such good friends. He’s so cute. When did all of your friends get so cute, Jaehyunie?”

At this, Jaehyun shoves her away. “Ew, can you _stop_ , that’s, like, cradle-robbing.”

Jiwoo levels him with an unimpressed gaze. “Actually, the norm of women marrying older men is entirely a misogynistic construct and a product of the patriarchal capitalist system that renders women financially dependent on men—”

“Where’s my duffel bag, I need to pack—”

“I bet cute, red-haired feminist Juyeonie would agree with me—”

“ _I have a train to catch right this minute, can’t wait—_ ”

Jiwoo’s shriek of laughter and Jaehyun’s subsequent indignant shout when she runs and jumps onto his back echo dimly in their childhood bedroom.

Later, after their mother has stuffed enough food to feed the ROK Army down their throats, and after Jiwoo has slipped out the door on a mysterious _evening hang out with a friend_ , Jaehyun settles himself between his parents in their living room to watch TV.

There’s a historical fantasy drama playing, something clearly low-budget if the costumes and bad CGI are anything to go by, but he’s not really paying attention to it anyway. Jiwoo’s words - _they’re homophobic, Jaehyun-ah, our parents are 100% homophobic_ \- ring uncomfortably in his ears. Something impulsive and reckless tugs at him, and, unable to resist the urge, Jaehyun opens his mouth.

“Sunwoo’s older sister got married,” he says off-handedly.

He wonders if that American theory of ESP has any credence — if humans really do have a sixth sense about certain things. His stupid childish desire to somehow prove Jiwoo wrong, to prove that their parents aren’t actually as bad as she had made them out to be, had forced those rogue words out of his mouth before he could catch them with his lips, and now, a terrible sinking feeling is stirring at some point right below his stomach.

The volume of the TV is just a little too loud and part of him itches to turn it off but that would ruin the illusion of nonchalance, so he doesn’t.

Beside him, his mother looks up from her knitting. “That’s nice,” she remarks mildly. “Was she in high school with you guys?”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Couple years older than us, I think she left by the time we started.” A lull in the conversation then, marked only by the idle clicking of his mother’s needles and the sound of his father’s newspaper opening and closing.

Jaehyun briefly wishes Jiwoo were here too.

“Yeah, she married her girlfriend in Taiwan,” he adds, staring down at his fingernails. “I think they met there after university or something.”

A snort makes him look up, and Jaehyun sees his mother chuckling into the half-completed scarf she’s making. “That’s trendy nowadays, I guess,” she laughs. Like it’s a joke.

From behind yesterday’s paper, his father chuckles too but says nothing else.

Something hot stirs in Jaehyun’s chest, and he can feel his face flushing but he tamps it valiantly down. “S’not trendy,” he rebuts as casually as he can. “They’re just in love.”

His mother smiles at him over her knitting, an amused curl of her pretty lips like the two of them are sharing in some inside gag.

“Right,” she agrees, still smiling.

Another silence as Jaehyun stares unseeingly at the drama playing on the TV. The protagonist, a man he might have found admirable and masculine once upon a time, seems like a domineering asshole when he grabs the limp body of his romantic interest. With a sinking feeling in his gut, Jaehyun tries again.

“What would you do if noona or I were gay?” he asks.

His father sighs and lowers his newspaper. “This again? What do you want us to say, Jaehyun-ah?” He closes the pages almost impatiently and holds the sheaf in one hand. Very seriously, he says, “We will always love you, no matter what.”

It’s not an answer, Jaehyun knows, but a concession. More agitatedly than he’d like, he presses forward, “But you wouldn’t—”

“Let’s not talk about these scary hypotheticals, hm?” his mother interrupts. “We just want you to live a normal, happy life.”

The words burn in Jaehyun’s eardrums, and he swallows tightly. “But what if? Right? It’s not like you can help being gay, so—”

“We want you to find a kind, pretty girl to settle down with Jaehyun-ah.”

The bottom drops out of his stomach, leaving him suddenly and abruptly empty.

Jaehyun hasn’t cried since he was thirteen and broke his arm playing tennis, but his eyes sting now. _Kind. Pretty. Girl._ Each word sends a dull ache through his bones and static crackles at his eardrums — the kind you get when you tune into the radio on a poor signal. Hope wastes away on his lips.

“Why wouldn’t you be supportive of whoever we wanted to be with?” he asks hollowly. What a foolish endeavour.

His father’s jaw grinds. With a voice that’s tight and a little too bristled with fear he responds, “We said we’d always love you. I think that’s enough isn’t it?”

And perhaps, when his parents go straight back to what they were doing with grim mouths and drawn eyes, it simply has to be.  
  


* * *

  
When Jaehyun wakes up, he feels…messy. All knotted up inside. He had gone to bed early the night before after the disastrous conversation, and when Jiwoo had slipped in a couple hours later and whisper-asked him how his evening was, he had pretended to be asleep.

Now, it’s early enough that the sky is a buttery dandelion colour, the sun completely hidden behind the line of trees Jaehyun can see from his window. He gets up and walks, barefoot, down the stairs.

“Jaehyunie.” His mother sounds surprised. She’s still in her own sleep clothes and her hair is fluffy and astray on top of her head. It’s cute, cute enough to make Jaehyun eke out a small smile.

“Hi, eomma,” he says softly.

There’s something stiff in the air, like breaths being held as they move around each other in the kitchen. Jaehyun’s mother sets about chopping scallions and carrots while Jaehyun waits for the water to boil in the kettle on the stove. He wonders, briefly, if Coupang delivers to Uiseong-eup and if he can order an electric kettle for his parents.

“You’re up early,” his mother says quietly over the sound of the flames licking worn metal. “I thought you’d sleep more — you work so hard, Jaehyun-ah, you really should rest when you have days off.”

Jaehyun glances up from where he’s been staring at the kettle. “I’m fine, eomma. Just couldn’t…I woke up by accident. Figured I’d come down and help you with breakfast.”

His mother reaches over and smooths her hand over his elbow. “Thank you,” she murmurs, and he can hear that she means it, that she’s smiling hopefully in his direction even if he doesn’t turn to face her. “Don’t let your appa catch you barefoot.”

Jaehyun snorts softly and curls his toes against the chilly kitchen tile. It _is_ a little cold, but he’d never say that out loud. A part of him thinks his mother knows anyway because she toes off her own house slippers and nudges them in his direction.

“Ah eomma, I don’t—”

“I want the acupuncture slippers anyway,” she says over her shoulder as she wanders out of the kitchen and towards the cupboard they keep in their entryway. “You know how my feet are.”

What Jaehyun knows is it’s actually all a ruse, but he slips his feet into the still warm slippers anyway. “Thank you,” he says, finally making eye contact with her. Her eyes crinkle, lined with age but still bright, and she reaches out to pat his face and pull him down for a kiss on the forehead.

For a second, the air seems to still around them. Jaehyun’s breath collects in his lungs and stays there as the two of them simply look at each other. He realises that for all her hurried words and averted gazes last night, she knows, this morning, that something is bothering him. He realises it bothers _her_ that he’s upset.

And still, neither of them say anything. What is there to say? The silence between them - between Jaehyun and his parents both - had grown too impenetrable it seems, layers of soil and gravel and bedrock piling on top of each other until the ground hardened and became barren.

Instead, his mother asks softly, “Want me to put some seaweed in the gyeran mari?” Her eyes have an optimistic gleam in them that makes Jaehyun’s heart clench painfully.

“Oh, I- appa doesn’t like seaweed though?”

His mother shrugs and smiles hopefully again. “That’s okay, I can make you your own roll. Let eomma make it for you, hm? Like I used to when you were a boy.”

It hurts, the gentle yet almost clumsy way she tries to balm things over, like trying to make a plaster that’s lost its adhesion stick.

Jaehyun doesn’t know what to say, so he only nods, tongue heavy in his mouth. There’s an apology in her eyes and regret, too, but this Jaehyun also knows — that she doesn’t understand what she’s sorry for, only that she wishes he didn’t hurt. That she hadn’t been the one to cause the hurt.

So instead of saying anything, she says she loves him.

“I love you, Jaehyunie,” she says as she tosses the vegetables into whisked eggs.

“I love you, my son,” she whispers when she hands him the omelette, black from the seaweed and yellow from the egg in a perfectly even flattened spiral.

“I love you,” she says when Jaehyun finishes eating, just the two of them standing in their kitchen, and after he says he’s going for a walk. She presses the words into his skin like the kisses on his cheeks and forehead and hair.

He’s been taller than her for a while, for many years now, in fact, but Jaehyun finds her terribly small in his arms. The thought makes him sad.

Almost as sad as the realisation that he felt like a coward when he’d left the words in his throat - _it hurts me when you say_ and _I wish you would support us if we_ \- to curl up like parchment caught on flame.

Almost as sad as knowing that his mother says she loves him because she doesn’t understand why she’s hurt him, because saying sorry would necessitate the admission that she doesn’t know why he hurts to begin with. The admission that they have ceased to understand each other the way they once did.

 _Is this love?_ he wonders when he slips his shoes on. It feels like love - aching, sore when he sees the furrow in her brow as she watches him go - but it feels like fear, too. Too scared to say anything and too scared to disturb the tranquillity of his parents’ happiness with his inane hypotheticals.

As he steps out of the house, Jaehyun ponders how cowardice and love have begun to taste the same.  
  


* * *  
  


Juyeon calls him the night before he leaves for Seoul. It doesn’t come as a surprise, not when they’ve been calling intermittently throughout the long weekend. Still, Jaehyun had been rather hoping to avoid talking to him for some reason he’s not too willing to examine closely.

(The reason reeks of shame and apprehension, he knows, and Jaehyun almost sneers at himself when he catches his faint reflection in the dark window. It’s hard to say what he’s more ashamed of — what feels like his parents’ failures, or his own.)

Taunting voices whisper in his skull but Jaehyun shoves them aside as he stares at the buzzing lit up phone in his hand. He sighs heavily before picking up.

“Juyeon-ah?”

“Hyung!” Juyeon’s voice washes over him, and the strange sudden sensation of being drenched in sunlight catches Jaehyun entirely off guard. “You’ve been radio silent the last 24 hours, I wanted to make sure you were still alive,” Juyeon teases — and has his voice always sounded like firewood crackling on the hearth? Surely not.

Jaehyun clears his throat awkwardly and locks his bedroom door. Jiwoo is in the bathroom, and he momentarily puts the phone on speaker so he can text her that he’s _on a call, don’t come in for a bit ok??_

“Uh- sorry, just give me a second,” he says disjointedly. The little blue arrow ticks off a ‘Sent’ and Jaehyun presses the phone to his ear once more. “Sorry about that.”

Juyeon chuckles over the line. “No worries, did I catch you at a bad time?”

“No, no, not at all,” Jaehyun says quickly.

“Oh, that’s good,” comes the response.

A flat silence falls over them as Jaehyun scrambles to find something to say. He isn’t sure why it feels this way, why the painful discomfort that had faded away within the first forty-eight hours of living with Juyeon is now back in full force between them.

“What’re you up to?” he settles for eventually. Good, that’s innocuous.

Juyeon doesn’t respond for a moment, and the hairs suddenly stand up on Jaehyun’s neck in panic. “Is everything okay, hyung?” he says finally.

Juyeon hadn’t answered the question, and instead asked the thing that Jaehyun had been avoiding this entire time. He forges on, “Sorry, was that too blunt? I think it was- sorry. It’s only- I was wondering if maybe you were avoiding me, which, like, sounds ridiculous cause it’s not like you have to respond to me right away, it’s just that you _had_ been responding right away and then suddenly stopped a couple days ago, and I was thinking maybe it was ‘cause my joke about your pastoral past-times was really urban-elitist of me and perpetuates the idea that rural regions are somehow behind and—”

“Juyeon, Juyeon-ah! Oh my god, slow down,” Jaehyun interrupts, bewildered. “Dude seriously, how big is your lung capacity?”

There’s another pause, and then Juyeon asks weakly, “Are you actually asking?”

“What? No, I was- wait, do you actually know?”

“Kinda. I mean, I know it’s a little over the average six litres,” is the meek answer.

“ _Why_ do you know that?”

Juyeon huffs. “So was I right? Were you avoiding me because of my insensitive joke? I’m really sorry, hyung,” he says contritely.

Jaehyun sighs and rolls over on his bed to stare up at the ceiling lamp. It’s a little dusty on the inside, and one of the lightbulbs is a white-light bulb instead of a yellow-light bulb like the other three, and it oddly irks him somehow.

“I didn’t find your joke insensitive at all, Juyeonie,” he says gently. “Do you know what I did yesterday? I drove to an empty field and drank warm beer in my car. I am the _definition_ of rural boredom.”

Juyeon laughs softly in response and the tense grip on Jaehyun’s limbs eases a little. “I…I _have_ been avoiding you. If I’m being really honest,” he goes on haltingly. Juyeon’s warm chuckle dies away abruptly, and Jaehyun can almost feel the hurt seeping through their slightly dodgy phone connection.

“It’s not because of anything you did!” he says quickly. “I’ve just…something happened a couple days ago and I didn’t want to- I don’t know, admit it to you? Talk to you about it? I don’t know. Anyway,” he shakes his head. “Hyung’s sorry for worrying you, Juyeon-ah.”

Juyeon doesn’t say anything for a moment, and from across the receiver, Jaehyun can hear the sound of fabric rustling like Juyeon has just scrunched himself up on their sofa. He can see it in his mind’s eye, the fading sage green wool blanket usually laid over the left armrest of their pale grey sofa instead wrapped around Juyeon’s shoulders now that the weather has gotten colder.

The image is frighteningly clear behind his eyelids, no less because Juyeon had literally sent him a photo of himself doing just that - bundled up, remote in hand with the caption _About to nature doc!_ \- three days ago.

It dissipates, then, when Juyeon’s voice filters through the receiver. “Okay. It’s okay. Thank you for telling me,” he says, and he sounds as genuine as he always does, like each word is chosen carefully and purposefully. “I didn’t know that, and I’m sorry something that caused you emotional strain happened. How’re you feeling now?”

Jaehyun bites his lip and looks out his bedroom window. The sky is inky dark, with stars spilling haphazardly over the velveteen sweep, and Jaehyun thinks absently to himself that he’d missed this - the sight of stars in the sky - in Seoul.

“I feel okay,” he says to Juyeon. “Processing. Still…hairy. Precarious? Precarious.”

“Precarious is okay,” Juyeon says encouragingly. “I hope you’re back on steadier ground soon.”

Jaehyun thinks of the train ticket to Seoul lying flat and tucked away in the secret compartment of his backpack. He thinks of the smell of the train compartment, the slightly stale air that perfume and food smells cling to. He thinks of Cheongnyangni Station, the first entry into Seoul, all glass and shining steel, marble patterned floors.

Jaehyun thinks of the door to his little Sinchon apartment - because it’s _his_ now, too - and the way it creaks when you push too hard. Thinks of the floorboards, a little worn and ridged, the dull gleam of Juyeon’s plants that cast helical shadows when the sun hits a certain point in the sky.

“Yes,” he says to Juyeon, a small smile tugging at his helpless mouth. “I think I will be.”  
  


* * *

  
Ironically, coming back to Seoul is even easier than going back to Uiseong-eup. Maybe it’s a slightly unfair comparison, Jaehyun concedes, because the moment he gets back mid-afternoon, he opens the front door to find Juyeon with his hair clipped out of his face, a green mask of some sort over his cheeks and chin and mumbling angrily to the large pot of alstroemerias by the TV.

“Hello?” Jaehyun asks uncertainly.

Juyeon jumps from where he’s patting the soil and whips around to stare at Jaehyun. “Jesus, you gave me a scare, hyung,” he says. He clambers up and goes to grab Jaehyun’s duffel from him. “Sit, sit, how are you? How was the train ride? Was it packed? Did you have lunch yet?”

“Why were you hovering over the flowers like Gollum?” is what Jaehyun chooses to say instead. “Were you stress-watering again?”

Juyeon’s mouth gapes open, and then he shuts it with a click. “No.”

Jaehyun scoffs. “What happened? The last time you stress-watered, some terrible government in another country passed an awful bill. What is it this time? Is your favourite weather-lady still not back on the job? Did you break another mug?”

Juyeon clucks, affronted. “What? No, nothing like that- _another_ mug, did you say? I haven’t broken a mug in _months_ , hyung, this is slander.”

“Well?” Jaehyun prompts.

Juyeon looks torn between ranting and refusing to say anything for the sake of his own dignity. “I- okay, David Attenborough _happened_ to be on the lifetime channel, and _maybe_ I didn’t learn my lesson from last time with the segment on orangutans, and _maybe_ he reported on how vaquitas are on the brink of extinction, so _maybe_ I got upset and started stress-watering. Maybe.”

Jaehyun squints. “How _what_ are on the brink of extinction?”

“ _Vaquitas!_ ” Juyeon repeats, face falling vexedly. “The smallest porpoise in the world of which there are fewer than twenty individuals remaining on this godforsaken planet! _Hyung!_ ”

“Okay, okay,” Jaehyun says quickly with his hands raised in a placating manner. He grabs one of Juyeon’s wringing palms and pats it soothingly. “There, there, it’s going to be okay.”

“But it’s not,” Juyeon says miserably. “The planet is burning and no one cares that things are falling apart and the WWF isn’t even that great but it’s all we have left basically—”

“Juyeon-ah! Juyeonie, stop, stop, it’s okay,” Jaehyun says quickly before gripping Juyeon’s hand tighter. He can already see the beginning of frown lines forming under his roommate’s thick layer of mask and bites back a small smile at the sight. “Is ranting at the poor potted flowers going to do anything?” he asks instead.

Juyeon sniffs. “No,” he concedes. “But I _did_ check if alstroemerias held up well under heavy metal music - because not all of them do, as you know—”

“Of course.”

“—and apparently they’re fine, so I figured my haranguing was the verbal equivalent of heavy metal and they would be alright,” Juyeon concludes. “Yeah.”

Jaehyun stares at him, mouth caught between laughing and cooing, and perhaps he doesn’t do a very good job of holding it in because in the next moment, Juyeon is pushing him haphazardly with a, “Hyung, stop laughing at me!”

“I’m not, I’m sorry — I’m not!” Jaehyun chokes. His roommate glares at him and Jaehyun affects the most innocent expression he can.

Then, Juyeon, twenty five and with a Master’s degree, rubs his face mask obstinately on Jaehyun’s outstretched hand like a disgruntled and vengeful cat, prompting what can only be called a wrestling match of epically juvenile proportions.

When Jaehyun goes to bed that night, tired and muscle-weary from the long day of travel, his eyes fight to stay open, but he struggles valiantly with them anyway. In the silence of the night, he can hear the muffled ticking of Juyeon’s living room clock, and Jaehyun’s sluggish brain lingers on one thought —

When you find a new home, somewhere different from the one you had called yours all your life, does your person split in two to inhabit both spaces at once? Or do you - your heart, your soul, your being - double in size, neither separate nor cleaved, big enough to fill every crevice in those two homes to the brim?  
  


* * *

  
The next two weeks pass in a blur. After the Chuseok break, Juyeon’s publishing house sends him three new manuscripts to read by the end of November, a challenge to which Juyeon rises with equal parts meticulousness and panic.

Jaehyun’s job, too, falls right back into the swing of things. Man Youngho, having returned from a long weekend with his family in Suncheon-si, is unprecedentedly grumpy and drives them all to the brink of madness with his grousing.

“What? No, that little idol boy is a lazy, untalented schmuck, I’m not having him on my show,” he had growled after the fourth failed pitch. “Seriously, has all the talent bled out of this town? Do I have to fuck off back to Jeollanam-do to find anyone worth featuring on this idiotic show?”

One of the executive producers, a small spunky man with a background in classical music, said dryly, “Why don’t you?”

“ _Don’t_ , Jiwoon,” Man PD had hissed dangerously. “I have slept a cumulative twenty hours over four days. Do not test me.”

And such and such. Anyway.

The invitation to let loose and work off some steam comes on a drowsy Sunday afternoon.

“Guys, we’re so _boring_ , we have to be young! And free!”

All of them turn their heads to eye Chanhee with expressions of mirroring distaste, bolstered, in fact, by the sheet masks they all have on.

“What?” he asks. “Don’t look at me like that, you ahjummas, come _on!_ Just one night out, I swear, I won’t ask again for the rest of the month!”

It’s Sangyeon who cracks first. He looks around at their collective group all laying on the marbled floor of Chanhee’s luxury flat in various states of casual wear - Kevin and Juyeon in joggers, Chanhee in leggings, and Sangyeon, Jacob and Jaehyun in loose sweats - and says slowly, “I mean…it could be fun?”

The combined groan is as loud as it is dramatic, but Chanhee’s crowing ‘yes!’ can be heard over all of it. If Sangyeon’s game for something, the group must follow — it is simply the law of the land, Kevin had explained to Jaehyun once, very early on in their friendship.

“Sorry guys,” Sangyeon chuckles, not sounding very sorry at all. His hand comes up to pet Chanhee’s head that has smugly made its way into his lap. “Seriously though, I’m free next Saturday and I haven’t had a free night since Chuseok. We can go to a bar or something, get food, chill over a couple drinks.”

“I guess I could finish finals planning early,” Juyeon hums contemplatively. “If it’s only a relaxed hang out at a bar.”

“Aw,” Chanhee pouts from where he’s lying like an exorbitantly expensive cat. “No rave?”

“ _No_ , no rave!” Jacob quickly cuts in. “Kev and I have kids getting sick left and right, we don’t need compromised immune systems just when the school district is getting into flu season.”

Chanhee whines but acquiesces anyway, taking a long sip of his cucumber water with a straw. “Fine, fine,” he grumbles. “When you’re all fifty and no longer hot and lamenting about your lost youth, don’t come banging on my door. I have an itemised list of every time I’ve been turned down by you sorry lot and I’m not afraid to pull it out.”

“Shut _up_ , Chanhee,” Jaehyun groans. “Do you ever stop talking?”

“Wanna invite Sunw—”

“ _NO.”_

“Spoilsport.”  
  


* * *

  
A week later, Jaehyun steps into the bar and peels off his jacket. The heat and humidity of an early Saturday evening at their local pub immediately sets in against his skin, and the feeling is as strangely pleasant as it is a little gross.

It’s mid-October now, and the temperature has settled into solidly biting levels of cold — their outings, his and Juyeon’s together and those with the group at large, have been relegated largely to indoor affairs where the heaters are turned on high and Juyeon always has heat packs stowed away in various pockets to whip out at any time.

“Nice, not too busy,” Sangyeon remarks from beside Jaehyun as he tugs off his beanie. “Let’s get that booth in the back?”

Everyone agrees, and the six of them shuffle between tables and clusters of bodies to throw themselves into worn leather seats. By the time they’ve shed their numerous outer layers, somehow Juyeon has already flagged down the waiter and given them their regular order — six orders of burgers (double-patties for everyone except Kevin) and thrice as much soju.

They swiftly settle into chatter, and Jaehyun gets caught up in a conversation with Chanhee about the summer showcase. He’s in the middle of commiserating about the lack of solo parts when a small metal tray is pushed under his nose.

Unbeknownst to him, the food had arrived piping hot, with cheese and caramelised onions spilling onto the red chequered paper liners. The Western theme of the pub is a little corny, he thinks privately to himself, but Kevin and Jacob are chatting delightedly about the “nostalgic decor”.

Juyeon smiles at him from across the table, arm still outstretched so that long golden fingers rest against the rim of the tray where Jaehyun’s burger is sitting piping hot. Jaehyun flashes him a grin and a brief chin-nod before digging in, and he briefly tunes Chanhee out as he watches Juyeon take an enormous bite out of his own meal.

Barbecue sauce catches on the edges of his mouth, and though he looks rather absurd with his cheeks full of food, Jaehyun’s heart gets caught on something warm and incorporeal anyway as he watches the way the low light of the bar diffuses across Juyeon’s sharp features.

It’s when they’re all one shot of soju in and howling with laughter at Kevin’s retelling of an embarrassing story that something distinctly awful happens.

Sangyeon gets up to go to the bathroom, and he’s lingering by the edge of the table to hear the tail-end of Kevin’s anecdote when someone jostles him accidentally.

A man, already drunk if the blotches of plum breaking across his face and neck are anything to go by, tries to stumble past. Jaehyun notices him absently, thinking he’ll wander right on over to the bathroom, but then he sees beady eyes suddenly stopping on Sangyeon.

Sangyeon, whose lips are bitten pink and who looks carefree and attractive with his dimples flashing amidst unrestrained laughter.

“What’re you dressing like a boy for, little girl?”

The slur smears through the air like black ink on parchment, irretrievable and hideous. There’s a collective gasp around the table, and in his periphery, Jaehyun sees Juyeon rise suddenly even as the quiet hum of the bar silences when everyone turns to see.

“That’s enough.” Jaehyun has never heard Juyeon’s voice so cold nor so steely. When he looks over properly, he sees Juyeon blocking Sangyeon from the crude offender’s view, using broad shoulders to shield Sangyeon’s frame.

Sangyeon is- _god_ , Jaehyun’s eyes throb with a surge of anger that rushes through him so immediately when he sees Sangyeon’s normally casually confident posture curled in on itself. The fury is paralysing, and he wants to be helpful, wants to go and bring Sangyeon back to the table the way Chanhee and Jacob are doing with soothing words and soft touches, but _fuck,_ Jaehyun can barely move even as his fingers twitch with the desire to punch something.

A dull ringing fills his ears.

There’s something vile and bitter about seeing Sangyeon’s open face crumble, as if for a second he believes those ugly untruths.

“You’ve embarrassed yourself,” Juyeon says calmly and clearly. “Your bigotry is unwelcome here.”

The man, puce-coloured and with his teeth bared, seems to be on the brink of violence when Juyeon’s hand on his bicep - gripping painfully hard if his white knuckles are anything to go by - stops him.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” he murmurs. “You are not welcome here.” Each word is enunciated slowly, laden with disdain and apathy. The man looks around, seems to notice that everyone in the bar is staring at him or talking under their breaths.

Perhaps it’s this, their collective disgust, or the unyielding grip on his arm that prompts him to deflate like a flimsy carnival balloon. “Fuck you,” he spits before storming out, knocking over chairs and past people in his haste.

Only when the door closes behind him do Jaehyun’s limbs unlock from their rigid state, and then everything seems to hit him at once — the sound of Chanhee whispering in Sangyeon’s ear, the smell of their soju shots still untouched and Juyeon- Juyeon’s hand on his thigh as he sits back down in the booth.

“He was an _asshole_ ,” Jaehyun says furiously to Sangyeon, whose skin is ashen. “I wanna go and—”

Juyeon’s hand on his thigh squeezes gently and the words stop at the barrier of Jaehyun’s teeth. Sangyeon looks up then, and Jaehyun’s heart hurts to see his normally handsome and smiling face stained with tears that course steadily down the apogees of his cheekbones, but then—

Then Sangyeon smiles and lets out a watery, tremulous chuckle. “Love you guys,” he says to their group. They all immediately echo the sentiment back in a chorus of care and regret.

Beside Jaehyun, Juyeon’s defensive demeanour collapses. With something like dismay in his eyes, he says, “Hyung, I’m sorry, I know you don’t need us to jump in like—”

“No.” Sangyeon’s voice is thick but clear. “No, you- I needed you this time. Thank you, Juyeon-ah.” Sangyeon’s eyes sweep across the huddle of faces, meeting everyone’s gaze - and Jaehyun’s chest clenches when he gets seen too, like he’s one of Sangyeon’s _people_ \- and says again, “Thank you.”

The rest of the evening goes a little quieter, boisterous laughter melting into sweet words blurred by the heat of soju slipping down their throats. Sangyeon’s eyes aren’t quite as bright as they were standing in the doorway of the bar, and there’s a raw, tender ache in the air that Jaehyun wishes he could bandage up somehow but this — this, he realises, is the meaning of family you choose.  
  


* * *  
  


**Lee Jaehyun**

_Juyeonie_

_Why is one of our barstools  
_ _legless_ _??_

**Lee Juyeon**

_…………………………_

_I’m really sorry_

_Please don’t be mad_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_You never cease to amaze_

_Alright, lay it on me_

**Lee Juyeon**

_I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO  
_ _“LAY” ON YOU  
_ _I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW IT  
_ _HAPPENED HYUNG_

 _One moment I was upright  
_ _and the next I was on the floor  
_ _and the barstool had three legs_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_??????_

_WHERE IS YOUR CENTRE  
_ _OF GRAVITY JUYEON-AH_

**Lee Juyeon**

_I DON’T KNOW AND IM  
_ _STARTING TO GET SCARED  
_ _CUS WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE ONE  
  
_ _LIKE, AT ALL_

_AND IM FATED TO FLOAT  
_ _THROUGH LIFE, UNTETHERED  
_ _AND UNBALANCED  
_ _LIKE A PLASTIC BAG  
_ _DRIFTING THROUGH THE WIND_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_I will never understand why  
_ _your fight or flight reaction is to  
_ _quote Katy Perry songs_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Ok Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson  
_ _is an artist and a trailblazer  
_ _of our time_

 _She is an icon for the fluidity of  
_ _sexuality and I will defend her  
_ _work with my dying breath  
_ _if it comes to it_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Please don’t  
_ _I was literally there when you got  
_ _into this argument w/ Chanhee  
_ _I don’t need to see the matinee_

_Where do you keep your tools_

**Lee Juyeon**

_I’m GAY, I don’t have TOOLS_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_…_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Ugh you’re right that was a  
_ _tasteless joke at the expense  
_ _of all LGBT folk, I obviously  
_ _don’t think sexuality ever  
_ _corresponds with a lack  
_ _of manual skill  
  
_

…

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Sorry for the late reply_

_I bought a toolbox for you_

**Lee Juyeon**

_You are my favourite person  
  
_

* * *

  
Over coffee on Saturday morning, Juyeon, blurred around the edges from tiredness, asks Jaehyun, “Wanna get coffee with me later?”

Jaehyun stares at him for a moment before dropping his eyes very obviously to the enormous mugs they’re both cradling.

Juyeon manages to produce something halfway between a yawn and a laugh and shakes his head like he’s trying to shake the drowsiness out of his eyes. “I meant I’m going to a cafe later, so I wanted to see if you felt like coming.” His gaze brightens steadily as he elaborates, “It’s so cool actually, it’s a stationery store and cafe all in one. It’s a bit farther out, in Anguk-dong, but it’ll be _so_ worth it, hyung, really.”

Jaehyun eyes his roommate over the rim of his cup as he takes a judicious sip. He doesn’t have much planned for today, had felt like listening to music and perhaps even writing some lyrics, and he can do that in a cafe as well as anywhere really.

“Sure,” he says with a smile. “Only if we’re staying there for a while though. Or actually, I can just hang out there if you have other things to do, I—”

“No, no,” Juyeon interrupts. “I have a bunch of papers to grade anyway so we can go for the day.”

Jaehyun nods in understanding. “Midterm season? How are your students shaping up?”

Juyeon’s eyes go soft the way they do whenever he thinks about his students, and as they polish off their coffee, he tells Jaehyun about the attendees of his undergraduate class — the ones who sit quietly in the back but who always come for office hours, the ones who come with all sorts of fun notebooks and gel pens to every lecture, and the ones who have clearly only skimmed the reading.

It’s when they’re shoving their feet into shoes, Jaehyun into his sneakers and Juyeon into sturdy black lace-up boots, that he sees them — Juyeon’s two big toes wiggling obscenely about, pale skin against forest green socks.

“Why do you live like this?”

Juyeon stills in the middle of unlacing his boots and looks up at Jaehyun. His eyes shift nervously at Jaehyun’s aggravated tone, and he asks slowly, “Live like what?”

“Like _this!_ ” Jaehyun demands, gesturing irritably at Juyeon’s feet. “With holes! In your toes! Are you or are you not 24 years of age?”

His roommate gapes at him disbelievingly before mumbling sullenly, “I am.”

“And did you or did you not graduate with honours from SNU after your bachelor’s _and_ sub-matriculation degrees, and did you or did you not graduate once again from enlistment with the Air Force at the top of your class?”

Juyeon flushes hotly and looks away. “Yes but I don’t see what that—”

“And so if _all_ of the above is true, Juyeon-ssi, please explain to me why you are a grown man, who is clearly of sound body and mind with an excellent education and mental temerity, walking around with holes in your socks like a _god damn barbarian_.”

Juyeon stares at him mulishly from the ground in a half crouch above his shoes but says nothing.

“Am I to take your surly countenance-” Jaehyun wags his finger imperiously in the air around Juyeon’s face, “-to mean that you do not, in fact, know how to sew, Juyeon-ah?”

He doesn’t get an explicit response, but he hears Juyeon grumble under his breath something that sounds remarkably like _show him one episode of Downton Abbey and this is what I get_. Jaehyun gleefully chooses to ignore it.

“Put your shoes on, boy.” Juyeon’s head whips up to stare at him with an expression of unadulterated affront. “Don’t look at me like that. Come on, we have to get to Namdaemun Market before all the ahjummas sell out and I can’t buy needle and thread anymore.”

Juyeon shoves his feet into his shoes and stands, laces undone with the biggest pout on his face. “ _Hyung_ ,” he complains. “I thought we were going to the cafe-stationery-store.”

Jaehyun grabs Juyeon’s arm and tugs him out of the flat, not pausing to check that the automatic lock has in fact bolted their door. With a shout of surprised laughter, Juyeon stumbles over his feet but rights himself shortly.

“No whining,” Jaehyun snaps sternly over his shoulder. “Especially not if I’m sewing all your socks for you tonight _and_ deigning to go to the cafe with you after.”

Juyeon’s face brightens. “Nice,” he says, making a little fist with his hand.

It’ll be a ten minute train ride backwards to get from the market to the store, or a thirty minute walk if Juyeon insists on catching the last dregs of autumn warmth, but the smile on his face makes Jaehyun grin anyway.  
  


* * *

  
It’s maybe a little sad, or maybe just concerning, Jaehyun thinks, how much _time_ he spends thinking about his roommate. It’s a constant incessant thing — sometimes active, like when he spaces out in the middle of the workday to replay the way Juyeon’s voice had sounded when he read the opening paragraphs of his thesis to Jaehyun, and other times, it’s a passive, low-level pulse just beneath the surface of his skin, work - _Juyeon_ \- dinner - _Juyeon_ \- chord in G sharp - _Juyeon_.

It can’t be normal to be this preoccupied, can it?

He tries to bring the question up with Sunwoo, who is patently unhelpful as always.

“Hey,” he pokes the hoodie-clad gremlin beside him. His friend doesn’t stop his incessant nodding, looking distinctly like one of the bobblehead troll dolls that taxi drivers keep on their dashboards. “Hey,” Jaehyun says again, a little louder and poking with a little more force.

“Wha—?” Sunwoo pulls his headphones off, face slack.

“How often would you say you think about Changmin-ssi?” Jaehyun asks.

Sunwoo’s brow puckers and he makes a face. “Why are you asking about my roommate?” His face suddenly goes comically horrified, a full ring of white forming around his dark pupils. “Chanhee hyung- I mean, Chanhee-ssi isn’t planning on ghosting noona, right? He _said_ we’d all _—_ ” Sunwoo stops himself short, face suddenly aflame.

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow.

“Never mind,” Sunwoo recovers quickly. “Why? Do _you_ want to take hyung out? I’ll tell ya right now, they are not interested in you, they are currently—”

“Could we have just one conversation - just one! - where you don’t take us off onto some ridiculous tangent?” Jaehyun deadpans. “Just answer the question, jackass.”

Sunwoo feigns a look of great offence that he holds for about thirty seconds before finally getting bored of the gag. “Uh, I dunno, hyung,” he says with a frown. He twirls himself around in his chair, and by the time he comes face to face with Jaehyun once more, he says, “Definitely every day. But, like, not in a deep _I’m thinking about you_ kind of way, more like in a _I hope you’re not at home lying in wait to jump-scare me_ kind of way. You feel?”

Jaehyun stares. “ _No_. I do not ‘feel’, dude, what?”

“Don’t worry about it. Why? How often do you think about Juyeonie hyung?” Sunwoo pivots with a cheeky smile.

The question makes Jaehyun flush, only a little, and he shrugs uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Same, I guess? Every day?”

“In a _please don’t jump-scare me_ kind of way or a _I’m thinking of you_ kind of way?”

Jaehyun makes a face. “ _Not_ the former, that’s for sure. I dunno. Mostly stuff like, oh Juyeon would like this, or I wonder if he’s run out of oat milk, should I go get him some? And only sometimes the- the _thinking of you_ way. But that’s a blurry line, right?”

Jaehyun sits up as his mind starts working. “Like, is thinking _I hope he remembers to have lunch in between classes and doesn’t spend his only break reading shitty dystopian novel manuscripts like he did last Tuesday_ — is that a daily roommate thought or a _thinking of you_ thought? Probably the former? Right?”

It’s not until he’s paused, attention brought back to Sunwoo instead of Juyeon’s habit of overworking himself, that he notices Sunwoo is eying him with ill-concealed concern but still nodding along slowly.

“Dude—” he starts.

“Don’t call me dude, I’m your hyung—”

“Dude-hyung, you should get that checked out,” Sunwoo says. “Like, medically or some shit.”

Jaehyun kicks Sunwoo’s desk chair so that his friend is propelled away from him with a yelp. “You’re such a twat,” he mutters.

“Totally,” Sunwoo agrees, rolling himself back into Jaehyun’s bubble of personal space. “Wanna listen to this Swedish EDM artist I found? It’s like time travelling with your _mind_ , Jaehyun hyung.”

Anyway.

Long-winded Swedish-electronic-music-digression aside, Jaehyun’s thoughts drift right back to Juyeon.

When Jaehyun walks into the apartment that night to find Juyeon with glasses perched on his face, headphones on, a bowl of rice in front of him and a highlighter in hand as he reads the third and final manuscript in time for the November deadline, Jaehyun abruptly realises what it is — what the strange thought that has been eluding him all this time is.

It’s a new one, a new thing to add to the growing list of realisations and carefully categorised information about Juyeon that Jaehyun keeps in his head. He’s a colour-coded folder man, so sue him, and Jaehyun likes to watch the people around him, for all that he seems loud and brash at times.

See, because Jaehyun has this _thing_ that Jiwoo likes to call bullishness with a side of petty streak but that he likes to call _consistency_. Sure, he holds grudges sometimes - okay, always - and doesn’t ever change his mind about people, but it means that Jaehyun is never caught off guard by his feelings for another person. He has one set of feelings and opinions about them, and that’s it.

Simple.

Except — except here, now, Jaehyun’s feelings, once called _as dull and stiff as quick drying cement_ are now...dynamic? Changing. Nuanced, maybe, in a way that catches him off guard.

What it was is this —

A simple, unshakeable sort of affection for Juyeon, like feeling steady when Juyeon is by his side. Like maybe Jaehyun had been alone but he isn’t anymore, and like his world is beginning to start and end with the crinkle of Juyeon’s eyelids, but not in a scary way like Jaehyun will fall apart if someone takes Juyeon away from him, but in a safe way because Juyeon is his. His friend. His roommate.

What it is now, instead is —

Sudden bouts of vertigo, a sudden onset of trembly, world-shattering, swooping things, the sensation of his mouth going dry sometimes when Juyeon will smile up at him from the floor where he’s starfished with all of his dry Germanic texts and the light catches his eyes in a very specific yet wholly dreadful way.

The worst part of it is that this isn’t the new normal, the new state of stasis that Jaehyun can simply adapt to. Because he’s _good_ at that — adapting and compartmentalising and ironing his feelings out until they’re creaseless and perfectly flat.

Instead, it’s the constant oscillation, a dizzying flip flop between _gasping for breath_ and _clean, pine-scented air_ that Jaehyun is suddenly contending with, because he’ll feel safe beside Juyeon for all of two seconds and then Juyeon will turn and laugh and his white teeth will flash under the sloping silhouette of his Cupid’s bow and then Jaehyun will be drowning all over again.

It’s the worst kind of whiplash.

So this is the thing about Juyeon that Jaehyun has found, a wholly new characteristic in his roommate that he’s never encountered elsewhere — the singular capacity to alter Jaehyun’s emotional state with the quirk of his lips, just on the right side, say. Jaehyun files it away neatly in his head, tucks it into the carefully labelled compartment saved for Juyeon and steps back.

Juyeon’s eyes are travelling freakishly fast across the page as he chews slowly on his rice. Jaehyun can tell he’s in the zone, in part because the movement of his gaze is like an Olympic ping-pong match along the width of the manuscript, but also because he hasn’t looked up since Jaehyun walked through the door two minutes earlier.

Jaehyun’s chest is still now, warm and fluttery instead of hot and jagged, and he welcomes the reprieve.

A big part of him wishes it was always like this - soft and fond and unassuming - but another part, the small yet loudly reckless part, likes the heady swoop of uncertainty and intoxication of Juyeon’s presence when he seems to be bathed in metaphorical magenta and blue lights, features drunk on enigma and a youthful sort of sensuality.

Jaehyun’s attention is brought abruptly back to Juyeon in the present - gentle and a little worn -because suddenly, his roommate’s head is whipping to the side opposite Jaehyun so that he’s staring out into the living room. From what little he can see of Juyeon’s profile, Jaehyun watches as he blinks once, then twice, before returning to his manuscript like a slightly confused kitten.

Jaehyun is so completely and utterly endeared.

He taps Juyeon. “What was that?”

“Thought I saw a grain of rice fly—” Juyeon starts to say absently before he jumps about a mile in the air. “ _Woah_ \- wha-!”

Jaehyun snickers at the petrified expression on Juyeon’s face, the wide-eyed gape and hung-open mouth, before Juyeon unfreezes and whacks him in the shoulder with his manuscript. “Can you please! Stop! Sneaking! Up on me!”

He punctuates each word with a healthy _fwap!_ on Jaehyun’s bicep.

“Sorry I have the nimble feet of a dancer,” Jaehyun responds loftily, finally plopping himself down in the barstool beside Juyeon’s. “How’s the book?”

Juyeon shrugs before flipping the document over and laying it aside. “It’s not...really for me,” he says carefully. “But I appreciate how much effort the author put into world building!”

Jaehyun snorts as he leans into Juyeon’s shoulder, chin hooking over that golden collarbone while he steals a bite of rice. “I wonder how many shitty manuscripts your company has had to bring to the second round all because you’re too nice to say something sucks.”

Juyeon groans as he pushes the rice bowl closer to Jaehyun. “Don’t, I nearly got in trouble last year ‘cause I said this truly awful manuscript was ‘unique and fresh’. I’m not allowed on first reads anymore, only second and third rounds,” he says mournfully.

“Juyeonie,” Jaehyun coos, ruffling the red hair that has faded to a dark wine-coloured mahogany.

“Ack, hyung!” Juyeon whines back, fighting to get away, but his eyes are lit up once more.

As he begins to tell Jaehyun in detail about the types of books he’s had to read over the years for the publishing house, Jaehyun finds himself wishing this light, downy warmth between them will never fade. Maybe he’d miss the fighting for breath or the bone-deep thrum of that something scary or reckless, but this - this lungful of clean air, pine needles being carried by gentle puffs of wind - could be enough for him.  
  


* * *  
  


**Lee Juyeon**

_Hello hyung_

_How is your day going?_

_Well, I hope?_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_...It’s going fine?_

_Why are you being weird_

_What did you break_

**Lee Juyeon**

_I was wondering what time you  
_ _think you’ll come home_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Uh...prob around 7:30?_

_Seriously, what did you break_

**Lee Juyeon**

_STOP ASKING IF I BROKE  
_ _SOMETHING I AM NOT  
_ _THAT CLUMSY_

_Sorry. Got agitated there._

_I would like to cordially invite  
_ _you to an evening of very civil  
_ _roommate negotiations. I have  
_ _prepared a slideshow that  
_ _should be arriving in your inbox  
_ _shortly._

 _I look forward to your  
_ _esteemed attendance._

**Lee Jaehyun**

_..._

_Why-Youngjae-Would-Be-  
_ _A-Good-House-Guest-For-  
_ _A-Two-Week-Winter-  
_ _Break.pptx ????_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Please save all questions for  
_ _the end of the presentation_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Oh my god_

_Juyeon-ah_

_Your brother can stay with us_

_It’s fine_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Oh._

_I expected more resistance  
  
_

_Wtf I just sank two hours  
_ _into that slideshow_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Lol  
  
_

* * *  
  


Juyeon is funny. Jaehyun doesn’t find a lot of people funny, not really, but Juyeon is and it’s a whole-body warming sort of feeling when he realises how funny he is. Funny like comedic ha-ha, but also funny like a little strange and very amusing.

For one, he reads a lot — and Jaehyun respects that. Juyeon reads _everything_ , from the intensely dry tomes of German political philosophers for his thesis, to tales of a Soviet botanist’s trek around the Caucasus in search of the last wild pomegranate, to pastel books with aesthetically pleasing covers and bookstore stickers that read _New York Times Bestseller! A feat in queer BIPOC YA fiction_.

The actually funny part of it all is that Juyeon, prolific reader and Eastern-bloc-pomegranate-enthusiast extraordinaire, will read deeply thoughtful and seminal works that Jaehyun can’t even begin to imagine digesting in the same breath as reading _online fan-fiction_. Like, stuff on the internet, written by humans with basic word processing apps, fluff and romance and angst in what are called “AUs” _fan-fiction_.

It’s hilarious.

When Jaehyun first discovers this it’s a weekend and he emerges from his bedroom to find Juyeon with his nose almost pressed to his phone screen with the amount of focus he’s giving it. Jaehyun’s lips quirk and he tiptoes quietly over to the barstool where Juyeon is sitting with his back mostly to Jaehyun’s side of the flat.

Into the young man’s ear, he asks suddenly, “Whatcha doin’?”

Juyeon shrieks and drops his phone on the counter.

“Nothing! I’m not doing anything!” His breathing comes in erratic puffs and his pupils are blown wide.

Jaehyun schools his expression into carefully sardonic incredulity. “Riiight.”

Heartbeat seemingly regulated once more, but with his hand still pressed indignantly to his breastbone, Juyeon says, “Seriously, I’m not- it’s a secret. I mean- it’s nothing. You wouldn’t understand.”

Jaehyun rocks back on his heels, watching with barely concealed amusement as Juyeon checks his phone screen with the amount of care that parents show their newborns.

“It’s nothing or it’s a secret? Or I wouldn’t understand?”

“It’s nothing.”

A beat.

“Okay it’s something but you can’t laugh at me for this because I’m _sensitive._ ”

Jaehyun wants to laugh, but he doesn’t because Juyeon looks terribly earnest and solemn right now, eyes blinking skittishly at him from under his red mop of hair. Instead he nods gravely, and takes a seat beside Juyeon.

“I’m ready.”

Juyeon inhales, then exhales. Repeats. Then, slowly, carefully, turns his phone screen over.

Jaehyun peers down at it, and for a long moment he’s intensely confused. It seems like a body of text of some sort, and when he skims through it, he realises it’s a romantic confession scene. He’s baffled. Juyeon literally sat with his cheeks pressed in his hands all of last Sunday as he ran through a marathon of indie French romance films, so a love story hardly seems like it should be embarrassing now.

That is, until he reads a little closer and sees —

_Steve brushes Tony’s hair away from his face, sweet and yearning, as if this is all he’s ever wanted to do. The war is over, and the world is safe and it’s finally right for them to be two people with all the time in the world._

_“So Cap,” Tony murmurs with a soft snort. “We doing this thing?”_

_A smile breaks out onto Steve’s handsome face and he leans forward to press a kiss to Tony’s weathered brow. “Yeah—_

Jaehyun’s eyes bug out.

“Is this- _wait._ What?” He reads it over again. “This is. What is this? Is this? _Fan?_ Fiction?”

His head snaps up as he goggles at Juyeon, whose mouth has turned into a weird squiggly mashed up line and whose eyes are darting about like a cornered animal.

Face bright red and cheeks sucked in, he nods.

“Wait…people write stuff about Steve? And Tony? As in Captain America and Iron Man?” Jaehyun frowns, puzzled. “But they always fight. Why would people want them to be together?”

It’s Juyeon’s turn to gape now, and he scrunches his nose in an entirely affronted manner. “Uh, _that’s_ the appeal. Hyung, c’mon — _enemies to lovers!_ Maou and Yuusha! Mr. Darcy and Lizzy Bennet! Goo Junpyo and Geum Jandi!”

“Alright alright! I just- Tony and Steve? Really?”

Juyeon’s playful offence mutes suddenly and something like hurt creeps into his expression. “What, cause they’re both men?” he asks.

And Jaehyun realises with a start, that no, it’s not because they’re both men and it might’ve been that half a year ago but now it’s—

“No! Cause _Bucky!_ Why would you put Steve and Tony together when Cap and Bucky clearly have superior chemistry?”

Juyeon’s mouth falls open, surprised and then with unfiltered warmth colouring the edges of his features. His mouth twists into a wry smile and, dryly, he remarks, “Of _course_ you’re a Stucky fan. Classic friends to lovers enthusiast.”

Jaehyun’s finger shoots up to hover threateningly in Juyeon’s face. “Hey. I am _not_ a ‘Stucky’ fan. I want no part in this-” he indicates vaguely at Juyeon’s demeanour and phone “-madness. Keep me out of it, y’hear?” Juyeon nods mock-dutifully and Jaehyun smiles grimly. “Good. Now I’m going to go take a whiz so please excuse me.”

He saunters off, Juyeon’s _ew can you just say pee like everyone else_ echoing in his ears.

Funny. Juyeon is just so funny.

A couple weeks later, Jaehyun is on a walk back from the record store as a part of his weekly Saturday pilgrimage to the best place in Seoul that is not his own apartment when he sees a familiar head of red hair perched inside a cafe.

Autumn is unfolding in Seoul like colour getting toasted from the inside out. It’s beautiful in its own way, and although Jaehyun misses the clean snap of leaves under his feet on bucolic walks down empty streets in Uiseong, the way Seoul looks warmed in shades of orange is lovely too, he finds.

He almost doesn’t see Juyeon, with his eyes saturated with rusts and cranberries and maroons as they are. It’s just starting to get bitingly cold out finally in early November after an unseasonably long summer and warm autumn, but Jaehyun merely pulls his hood up a little tighter against the buffet of the wind and steps up to the cafe window.

He peers in, firmly ignoring the patrons sitting at the stools by the floor-to-ceiling glass who eye him weirdly, and grins to himself when he sees Juyeon smiling at his laptop. It’s not his _hyung the cat next door licked my finger and its tongue was so tiny hyuuuung_ smile, nor his _apparently a Great Barrier Reef coral species successfully migrated to Japanese waters isn’t that great_ smile.

It’s his _oh my god they’re in love_ smile, his _fan fiction fluff makes me so happy_ smile, and Jaehyun’s fists clench inadvertently with how utterly endearing the sight is.

He pulls out his phone and taps out a message quickly.

_Have Stony declared their undying love for each other yet?_

Jaehyun swiftly looks up and waits, bottom lip caught between his teeth. He sees the second Juyeon receives the message, because his eyes dart to the side of his screen carelessly at first and then away, before zeroing back in on it. The poor man’s face turns scarlet, and he doesn’t even glance around him before his long fingers are slamming out a response on his computer.

A moment later, Jaehyun’s phone buzzes four times.

_First of all, I will not be marginalised for partaking in a genuinely enjoyable hobby that harms no one and that augments my quality of life, particularly given that I am personally very against rating hobbies or literature on a sliding scale of value because it’s elitist and messed up and takes away a lot of the joy that comes from reading._

_IT ALSO ignores the fact that many fanfic writers are actually very talented and eloquent people AND many of whom are women whose hobbies do not deserve the misogynistic mockery they’ve been forcefully dealt._

_Second of all, no, Steve and /Sam Wilson/ have not yet declared their love._

_Third of all, did you hack into my laptop can you stop stalking me !!!_

Jaehyun laughs boisterously, and now the people sitting by the window are really starting to look creeped out but he doesn’t care because Juyeon is so unerringly cute in his righteous indignation. He texts back

_You’re right I repent and am very contrite_

_But Sam Wilson??? As in Falcon?? Man, where’s the loyalty_

_Poor Steve and Tony are languishing_

_Also I didn’t bug your laptop, look out the window_

Juyeon startles in his wooden cafe seat, then looks wildly around until he catches sight of Jaehyun outside. Jaehyun waves jauntily, and the other patrons all turn around to see Juyeon whose ears are burning with all the attention on him. With a pained expression, he waves back, then turns to his laptop to type once more.

_It’s called a rare pair hyung_

Half a second later—

_Also did you forget to wear your scarf?? I told you it’d be cold today_

Juyeon looks up to frown reproachfully at Jaehyun but Jaehyun waves him off.

_I’m fine, you worry too much_

_Gonna head home, I wanna listen to this new record_

_See you later?_

Juyeon smiles over the tops of the window-patrons’ heads and waves bashfully before going right back to reading. Jaehyun can see the moment he sinks into the narrative once more, the way his eyes brighten and his nose scrunches up in pleasure.

Ah, his Juyeon is so funny.  
  


* * *  
  


“Okay, seriously, if Youngjae ever gets in your way or you want alone time, you can just tell him or tell me and we’ll get out of your hair,” Juyeon says, as if he hasn’t repeated this same sentiment four times over the last week leading up to his little brother’s arrival.

“Juyeon,” Jaehyun says tiredly, legs propped up against the coffee table that Juyeon is trying to clean. “It’s fine. Seriously. I know, and I will let you know _if_ that happens although I highly suspect it won’t. Please stop…flapping.”

Juyeon straightens up from where he had been crouched with a feather duster in hand and _undeniably_ flaps — indignantly, too. “I’m not flapping,” he argues back. He totally is.

“You totally are,” Jaehyun points out. He pats the spot on the sofa beside him invitingly.

“I’m not- ah, hyung,” Juyeon whines, before tossing his duster down. He throws himself onto the sofa next to Jaehyun and shuffles until their bodies are almost touching.

Juyeon does that a lot, Jaehyun has noticed, he shifts and moves so that he’s in his friends’ orbits but doesn’t quite initiate touch. Chanhee had joked that he was touch averse once, that he draws up an entire cost-benefit analysis every time he has to initiate contact, and although Juyeon had rolled his eyes playfully, Jaehyun does think there’s a grain of truth to it. Sometimes he wonders if Juyeon actually wants to touch but doesn’t know how, or if he merely subsists happily on the almost-touch of hovering in someone’s periphery.

Regardless, Jaehyun himself reaches out now, just like he has so many times before, and clasps their hands together. This is Jaehyun’s favourite, he thinks, the warm weight of Juyeon’s hand in his.

“What’s going on in that big brain of yours?”

Juyeon shifts a little to peer up at Jaehyun from where his head is lolled against the sofa back. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I guess- I don’t know, it was already such a big deal, right, when Youngjae told our father he was only coming back for an extended break for American Thanksgiving to finish his exams at Yonsei and then go right back to the States for Christmas.”

Juyeon scratches his nose with their linked hands before going on. “And then, to add insult to injury, Youngjae told him he would be staying with _me_ and not him for the break. I feel- I feel like if anything goes wrong, if it’s not _perfect_ , Youngjae will have misplaced his trust in me. My dad - I see how much it hurts Youngjae every time he fails, so I- I just can’t.”

Jaehyun doesn’t say anything for a moment, only squeezes their hands tighter together. When at last Juyeon’s neck relaxes and he leans back once more to laze on the sofa, Jaehyun says softly, “You shouldn’t think of it like that. It’s not fail or succeed, not when it comes to Youngjae. He looks at you like you hung the moon and stars, Juyeonie.”

Juyeon huffs out a humourless breath of laughter and pulls his knees up to his chest, tight, like he’s protecting himself. “That’s the part that stresses me out the most,” he admits tersely. “I’m so scared of disappointing him _because_ he thinks I’m this great person to look up to.”

He turns to look at Jaehyun directly once more. “What if he’s got it all wrong?”

Jaehyun reels his head back and frowns at his roommate. “You don’t actually think that, do you?” he asks. Juyeon shrugs, eyes drifting away once more. “No, seriously, you don’t actually think he got it all wrong, right?”

He swivels his body so that he can grab Juyeon by the shoulders, their faces suddenly mere centimetres apart. “First of all, you care — you care so much, so you’re already off to a good start. And second of all, you listen. You don’t talk over him when he tells you what he needs or how he’s feeling, you don’t treat him like he knows less than you. You listen like you _want_ to know what he has to say, and you make time to do it,” Jaehyun says stoutly. “If that’s not being the best older brother out there, I don’t know what is.”

Juyeon’s jaw goes slack on him, looking somewhat bewildered by the vehemence in Jaehyun’s tone. He has tiny chips of chocolate brown in his dark irises, Jaehyun notices for the first time, and though he’s only twenty five, there are microscopic crow’s feet forming at the corners like he’s spent so much time smiling that the wrinkles have prematurely formed in his skin. Jaehyun finds it remarkably difficult to tear his gaze away.

“Oh,” Juyeon intones, sounding baffled. “I didn’t- I hadn’t thought of it like that.” He pulls back a little when Jaehyun’s grip on his shoulders loosens. “Thank you, hyung, I really needed to hear that.”

The smile that unfurls on his face is as cosy and bright as a flicker of flame on a cold night, and Jaehyun finds himself holding onto it - its warm glow - with a sort of stomach-clenching desperation seeping back into his bones.  
  


* * *  
  


The hustle and bustle of the airport is overwhelming, even in the middle of November when it’s not quite the holiday season. The four of them - Juyeon, Jaehyun, Sangyeon and Jacob - are standing in the arrivals waiting area, all holding placards of different colour and size. Jacob had even borrowed a driver’s hat from his school’s theatre department and popped it on top of his head, his pretty eyes sparkling with humour underneath the stiff rim.

“You know, I really think we should start recycling the signs,” Juyeon mutters absently as he peers over the heads of other people waiting for their loved ones. “It’s not like Youngjae will notice, and it’s really bad for us to be using so much paper just for one occasion.”

“Of course, Juyeonie,” Jacob says placatingly, throwing his arm around Juyeon’s slightly stiff shoulders and wiggling his florid pink cardboard placard around in the air.

Juyeon glances at him gratefully, and then them all. “You guys really didn’t—”

“Have to come, we know,” the three of them chorus pointedly, mouths equally set in blatant forbearance.

Juyeon makes a face and chuckles sheepishly. “Sorry,” he mumbles, skin flushing a little when Sangyeon ruffles his hair fondly. “Just nervous.”

“Don’t be,” Jacob says cheeringly. “Besides, if anyone should be nervous, it’s Sang—”

A frantic smack from Sangyeon cuts him off, but if Juyeon had heard Jacob to begin with it certainly doesn’t matter now, not when his eyes are lighting up and he’s yelling over the swell of the crowd, “Youngjae-yah! Youngjae, over here!”

Jaehyun, who can’t quite see over the bustle of bodies, whispers to Jacob beside him, “Why should Sangyeon hyung...?”

Jacob’s face takes on an uncharacteristically devious expression and he winks conspiratorially at Jaehyun. “Just wait and see. I’m pretty sure Juyeon has no idea - although how he doesn’t is an absolute mystery - but it’s pretty obvious.”

Jaehyun frowns in confusion but nods anyway. Just then, the crowd parts in front of them, and Jaehyun barely has time to yell out a warning before a blur of blonde hair and sun-kissed skin is barrelling right into Juyeon.

“Hyung-ah!” The juvenile nickname is yelled into the air and it mingles immediately with Juyeon’s surprised yet delighted burst of laughter. Jaehyun watches as Youngjae’s legs wrap, marsupial-like, around Juyeon’s waist and Juyeon’s long arms immediately circle around Youngjae’s slight frame to hold him steady.

“I’ve missed you,” Juyeon says softly into Youngjae’s hair. “When’d you get so tall?”

Youngjae sniffs a suspiciously wet sound into the crook of Juyeon’s neck. “You and I both know I haven’t grown since I was sixteen,” he mumbles.

Juyeon chuckles and sets his little brother down, who hastily wipes at the thin film of moisture in his eyes.

“I missed you, Jacob hyung,” he cries, throwing himself into Jacob’s outstretched arms, only a quick hug before he pulls back.

“Jaehyun hyung,” he bows low and deep, mischievously unctuous, and though this is technically only the first time he’s meeting Youngjae in person, Jaehyun has to tamp down the urge to swat him around the head.

Finally, Youngjae turns to Sangyeon. Juyeon is fussing with his little brother’s discarded luggage and so perhaps doesn’t notice the slight change in atmosphere, but Jaehyun does. Beside him, Jacob nudges his elbow into Jaehyun’s ribs.

“Look,” he whispers.

Jaehyun stares, dumbfounded, as Youngjae sidles up to Sangyeon, who looks simultaneously petrified and exhilarated at once. “Hi, Sangyeon hyung.” His voice has dropped to an odd timbre, something low and a little suggestive, and Jaehyun watches in mute horror as Sangyeon’s face goes promptly pink.

“Youngjae-yah,” Sangyeon greets gruffly, sounding for all intents and purposes like he has a frog in his throat. “You look good.”

The last part seems to have fallen from his lips without his meaning to say them, and Jaehyun wants to laugh a little hysterically at the suddenly gobsmacked expression of _immediate regret_ on Sangyeon’s face.

Youngjae leans in closer, chest almost pressing against Sangyeon’s side as he loops his arms around Sangyeon’s neck. The height difference between them is only marginal, but the disparity between Sangyeon’s broad shoulders, set awkwardly, and Youngjae’s willowy frame is almost comical.

“Yeah?” Youngjae asks in an undertone. “You think so, hyung?”

Jaehyun feels immediately like he needs to look away. Like, yesterday.

“Youngjae-yah, did you have breakfast on the plane?” Juyeon asks, still shuffling through his brother’s multiple bags now piled in various forms in his arms and being towed behind him. Grateful for the respite, Jaehyun leaps forward to grab a particularly unwieldy looking duffel bag from him.

Juyeon smiles gratefully at him - and Jaehyun’s one-track mind immediately notices how bright and lovely his eyes look - before turning to face Youngjae properly. “Do you want- uh…what’s happening?” he asks uncertainly, eyes darting nervously between his brother and his friend.

Sangyeon pulls back from Youngjae like he’s a hot brand, arms immediately coming to clamp around his torso like he’s protecting himself from being punched, or touched, or _something_. “Nothing!” he squeaks. “Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Shall we get dinner? Or, I mean, hah, it’s too early for dinner, it’s only 11AM! Breakfast, then! Or lunch! Brunch! The world is our oyster.”

Jacob snorts unattractively behind Jaehyun, and Jaehyun finds himself struggling not to do the same. Sangyeon’s ears are steadily turning postbox red, and his eyes dart around their faces like he’s a cornered mouse searching for salvation.

“Yes, brunch sounds good,” Youngjae chirps beside him. “Bagsy sitting next to Sangyeon hyung in the car!”

Juyeon clicks his tongue disapprovingly even as Sangyeon goes puce. “Yah, I’m your older brother! Who you haven’t seen—”

“Yes, Youngjae, you should sit next to Juyeonie—”

“No, I’m okay—”

“Ah, hyung, I was joking around, Youngjae can sit next to you of course,” Juyeon says fondly. “C’mon, let’s go, if we don’t get out of here now we’ll get caught in the midday rush downtown.” He turns to leave, Youngjae’s bags still in tow. “Sangyeon hyung, grab Youngjae’s hand, will you? I don’t want him getting distracted and wandering off.”

“Ooh yes, you know how prone to wandering I am,” Youngjae coos as he grabs Sangyeon’s hand in his. “You’ll hold onto me, though, won’t you, hyung?”

Jaehyun sees Sangyeon’s crumpled face, hears Jacob’s squawk of laughter and decides, then and there, that he’s _not_ getting involved.

“Juyeonie, wait up,” he calls, hurrying after his roommate. “I’ll help you with the other bag.”  
  


* * *

  
“So?” Jaehyun whispers to Jacob after the car they’d hired to drive Youngjae back from the airport starts taking off down the highway. “What’s going on between them?”

Jacob glances, askance, at Jaehyun before saying wryly, “Thought you weren’t getting involved.”

Jaehyun waves him off. “That was then, this is now,” he replies airily. The truth is, the curiosity is killing him. Jaehyun can see from the angle he’s sitting in how Youngjae’s hand is pressed perilously close to Sangyeon’s thigh, and how Juyeon’s little brother keeps leaning in to whisper things into Sangyeon’s ear in the backseat.

Juyeon, in the front with the driver and chatting merrily away with him about the weather and incoming winter, doesn’t seem to notice that his little brother is waging a one-man seduction campaign on Sangyeon in the last row of car seats.

Jacob huffs out a laugh but leans in to whisper in Jaehyun’s ear anyway. “I don’t know the whole story, or a lot of the details anyway, but Youngjae’s been in love with hyung for, god, years now.”

Jaehyun’s mouth falls open. “Oh but- wait, it’s not...reciprocated?”

Jacob rolls his eyes. “Have you _seen_ them? Of course it’s reciprocated. But y’know, Youngjae was eighteen when they met, and hyung was- well, he was in a different place back then, and not really in the right state of mind to start any sort of relationship. I think he tried to talk Youngjae out of waiting, but you know what Youngjae’s like — stubborn as anything.”

Jacob shrugs, eyes flicking up to look fondly in the rearview mirror at the two people behind. “Who knows? Maybe now is finally their time,” he says softly.

He has a smile on his face that looks hopeful and warm, and Jaehyun sees him surreptitiously watching the rearview mirror for a beat too long. To an outsider - or Juyeon, at least - the sight of Youngjae and Sangyeon might look like any dongsaeng leaning on an older friend, but Jaehyun can see the punch of colour high on Youngjae’s cheeks as he looks out the window from where he’s resting his head on Sangyeon’s shoulder, and the almost unbearably tender looks Sangyeon keeps casting his way.

“What do you mean hyung wasn’t in the right state of mind for a relationship?” Jaehyun asks when he finally tears his eyes away. “I mean, if Youngjae was legally an adult and they obviously had feelings for each other, why wait?”

Jacob looks at Jaehyun shrewdly for a moment before his expression mellows out into something a little sad and wistful. “It’s hard, harder than most people realise, getting into a relationship when you’re not out,” he says meaningfully. “Harder, even, when you aren’t sure of who you are.”

Jaehyun’s breath falters. “O-oh, I didn’t realise,” he says. He’s about to apologise when Jacob wraps an arm around his waist and squeezes his thigh on the other side.

“It’s okay, you had no reason to know that,” he says gently. “But yeah. It’s tough.”

Something in Jacob’s tone makes Jaehyun realise his friend - gentle, placid, warm Jacob - has felt this toughness too, that underneath all the softness there are callouses and layers of unyielding skin that have had to build up to withstand those indescribably difficult things in life. Jaehyun places his hand tentatively on Jacob’s knee and squeezes, trying to convey wordlessly something he doesn’t have the vocabulary for.

The way Jacob smiles back, a little burnt but still sweet, makes Jaehyun think he understands.  
  


* * *

  
Like most men in the Republic of Korea, Jaehyun doesn’t have much to say about his time in the military. What is there to say, when you and all your friends have experienced more or less the same thing? The only stories he’d heard traded after leaving his battalion at the age of twenty were tales of something extraordinary — someone getting sent away to another battalion for clashing with a supervisor, or a near-death experience when training with explosives went awry.

For the first couple years after getting discharged, as the majority of his acquaintances finished their service too, Jaehyun always listened with rapt attention when his friends from home would tell their stories, but he always shrugged when they asked him for his own. _Nothing special_ , he’d say every time. 

To be fair, there really wasn’t much to tell. A power outage one night his first year, a freak bout of drought his second. Nothing exciting compared to an accidental bomb scare.

There is one story though, something of note that he’s never forgotten, that Jaehyun never told. He doesn’t like to think about why.

By the middle of his first year, Jaehyun had made a number of good friends in the other young men in his cohort. They were all from different counties and towns, many of varying ages, but there’s a kernel of truth in the sentiment that hardship builds camaraderie.

When you’ve withstood having every inch of your self getting torn down to be rebuilt into a better, faster, stronger version to best serve your country with the same few people, it’s hard to break that bond.

Jaehyun doesn’t think about them much anymore, not now that it’s been a number of years since he finished his service.

He thinks of Sohn Kiwoo though, sometimes. When the other boys are telling their stories of trenches collapsing and snowstorms in the crux of winter, Jaehyun thinks of Sohn Kiwoo.

Jaehyun thinks of Sohn Kiwoo from Daegu, who ate more meat than he did rice, who liked to sing trot songs under his breath during punishments, _to keep things interesting_ , he said. Jaehyun thinks of Sohn Kiwoo, and the dimple on his chin, the ruddy faced smile he always had after they had their allotted phone calls because his _little sister can talk now, she said hi to me on the phone_.

Jaehyun thinks of Sohn Kiwoo, who talked about girls with all of the rest of them, and how it was a good thing that their supervisors worked them so hard because it meant that none of them even had the energy to think about sex when it finally came time to sleep.

Jaehyun thinks of him, in part because Kiwoo had been his friend and he had liked his easy-mannered way of talking, but mostly because Kiwoo had left, sometime around November and no one knew where he went.

Jaehyun lets his comrades tell that story sometimes when they get together with people who were in other divisions — how one of the guys just randomly up and left in the middle of service, but Jaehyun doesn’t say the part where he knows why Kiwoo left.

Jaehyun doesn’t say that he saw Kiwoo kissing Seo Ilsung behind the barracks one night when he hadn’t been able to sleep and missed the smell of Uiseong. He doesn’t say that he had stood there, frozen, something odd and foreign in his heart, as their lips met again and again in the night, soft sounds passing between them until Jaehyun had accidentally stepped on a twig as he tried to retreat.

They had split apart, the two of them, eyes suddenly wild with fear, and when Jaehyun said nothing, stayed hidden in the shadows, they had relaxed a fraction but not quite.

Seo Ilsung had whispered to Kiwoo, “What are we doing? Are you and I- are we something?”

And Kiwoo had stared incredulously back at him - even Jaehyun could see the sheer disbelief in his eyes from where he’d been standing a number of metres away - and whispered, “Something? Don’t be- are you crazy? We are nothing.”

“But—” Ilsung had tried to protest, in that clean accent that one gets from living in a city right outside of Seoul — and maybe that’s not the only clean thing you get from being near the capital, maybe your hopes are clean and simple, too, but Kiwoo’s satoori had been louder and thicker and he had interrupted —

“But nothing. I have a little sister who doesn’t know my face yet. I have parents to feed and a restaurant to run, all in Daegu. You and I — this isn’t anything, Ilsung-ah.”

And the next day, when Jaehyun rolled out of his bed at 5 AM, Kiwoo had been gone. Moved to another battalion, his supervisor said. He had an uncle or perhaps a friend of an uncle in the Marine Corps, and Kiwoo had pulled some strings - strings no one knew he had - and asked to be moved.

No one said much, except that they’d be sad to miss his trot songs and that he was crazy for wanting a longer service with the marines.

Ilsung hadn’t said anything either, and Jaehyun didn’t say anything to him because he had been friends with Kiwoo, not Ilsung, really, and what does one say, anyway, about things that are unspeakable?

So Kiwoo was gone, and service resumed, and the memory of him faded away into barked orders and muddied shoes and the propaganda of a country held in a military deadlock with its own brother.

Jaehyun would say, today, that he’s kept a number of mementos from the military. The instinctual reaction to run not walk when someone asks him to fetch something, the erasure of ‘no’ from his vocabulary, even the badges that he’d earned, kept in a nice box back in Uiseong.

Jaehyun wonders what Kiwoo and Ilsung have kept sometimes, if they kept the same things as him or different things — things more painful than the old scar Jaehyun has on his knee from crashing into barbed wire, maybe deeper and more weathered that new skin doesn’t heal the pain of.

But Jaehyun doesn’t say this out loud, and when people ask him what his time serving was like, he says, “Nothing special.” He tells them he doesn’t have any stories particularly exciting to tell, and he doesn’t say that the memory of Ilsung’s red lips on Kiwoo’s is burned into his mind like a strange and awful tattoo.  
  


* * *

  
That night, Juyeon and Jaehyun host them all for dinner. Or, more like dinner food eaten at around 3:30 PM and instead of everyone eating, they all just watch Youngjae eat and steadily pile more food into his plate.

When Chanhee first shows up at the door, he has his arms full of enormous bags of takeout. When Youngjae throws the door open, Jaehyun and the others watch on in amusement as Chanhee almost drops the food in his haste to catch Youngjae’s flying body.

He grunts as their frames collide against one another, but the smile on Chanhee’s face is soft and fond as he cards his fingers through Youngjae’s blonde hair. “Ah, you haven’t changed,” he says warmly, and Youngjae nods his head into the crook of Chanhee’s neck.

By the time Kevin has arrived, looking exhausted from a day of running through scenes with their school’s theatre club, they all set about quite literally feeding Youngjae.

Jaehyun likes to watch people, likes to watch how they interact with the world around them.

He likes watching his friends now, because he sees —

Juyeon, who hasn’t left Youngjae side since they got back to the flat, and who keeps absently throwing his arm around his little brother as if to assure himself that Youngjae is really there before pulling it back, looking almost embarrassed as he does so.

Sangyeon, who is on Youngjae’s other side, making suspicious squeaking noises every time Youngjae leans in to murmur something in his ear, but who casts the gentlest looks Youngjae’s way when he thinks no one is paying attention.

Chanhee, who keeps piling food onto Youngjae’s plate even though he’s sitting the farthest away from him, who cuts pieces of meat into smaller bites without Youngjae noticing, who doesn’t put anything on his own plate but looks perfectly satisfied anyway when the boy of the hour takes a bite.

Kevin, who seems like he can’t help but talk to Youngjae in rapid fire English before switching back to Korean when he catches himself, who makes Youngjae laugh so hard he snorts peach tea out of his nose.

Jacob, whose ankle is twisted around Youngjae’s under the coffee table, who doesn’t say much but who drinks in every word that falls from Youngjae’s lips like he’s been waiting all along to hear them.

Jaehyun likes watching them be a family, likes to feel like he’s family too when Youngjae reaches over and grabs his hand, pulls him into a conversation about how Juyeon leaves socks everywhere but is reasonably neat otherwise, has a large collection of Hello Kitty paraphernalia but no other vices, and is altogether “ _a totally bizarre dude”_.

Jaehyun likes using his body to shield Youngjae when Juyeon indignantly reaches over to pinch him on the cheek, likes ‘accidentally’ falling on top of Youngjae and Sangyeon and having Kevin and Jacob and Chanhee ‘fall’ on top of him too until they’re all a big pile of limbs and love that Juyeon can only stare helplessly down at.

Jaehyun likes being here, coexisting with all these people, accepting the home they’ve all made for him in the spaces they whittled out of their own chests. This is love, he thinks: giving with every fibre of your being, but also letting yourself take what others are freely offering to you.  
  


* * *

  
He’s standing at the stove, feeling like this is the assessment of a lifetime as he carefully flips over the edge of the omelette pancake. Jaehyun can _feel_ Youngjae’s eyes on the back of his head, for all intents and purposes scrutinising his every move.

He sees the slightly browned bottom of the egg and cringes.

“You like your eggs stiff and a little dry, right?” he asks without turning.

“Nope.” Youngjae draws the vowel out long, almost a drawl.

Jaehyun cringes again. “Well, now you do,” he responds, tipping the arid egg onto a plate. He turns around and plops it onto the island counter where Youngjae is sitting, and immediately uses his hands to grab it so he can start slicing it into thin rolls.

“Ow, ow, fuck, ow,” he hisses steadily as his fingers come into contact with the still piping hot surface. Youngjae makes no effort to help.

“Just wait till it’s not so hot, hyung,” he snickers, chin propped up on his hand.

Jaehyun doesn’t bother looking up when he mutters, “Waiting’s for pussies, in this household, we die like men.”

Just then, Juyeon’s footsteps come down the hallway, and a moment later, his voice pipes up, “Toxic masculinity so early in the morning, hyung?” The lilt of his tone is teasing despite the muffled, sleepy quality. Jaehyun looks up, eyes shining, to see Juyeon standing there swathed in an enormous hoodie and with a pillow crease on his cheek draping his arms over Youngjae as he leans on his little brother’s fluffy head of hair.

He smiles tiredly back, rubbing his eyes.

“You didn’t happen to put the kettle on did you?” he asks.

Jaehyun grins knowingly before grabbing Juyeon’s mug for him, already filled to the brim with coffee. The way Juyeon’s eyes light up at the sight, so childishly thrilled by the small gesture that took Jaehyun barely an extra second, makes Jaehyun’s heart seize in his chest.

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that…” he mumbles, trailing off as he takes a few large sips of coffee. “Fuck, you got it just right.”

Jaehyun snorts. “It’s coffee, Juyeon-ah, and black too. How wrong could I possibly make it?”

Youngjae snorts, piping up for the first time. “Very, you should’ve heard him growing up — _Youngjae, that’s basically sludge, what are we, lungfish?_ and _Youngjae-yah, this tastes like a coffee bean died, floated around in some water, and then had its lone carcass fished out_ , et cetera et cetera.”

By the time he’s done, Juyeon’s face has taken on a distinctive scarlet quality. Jaehyun has to press his lips together to keep from laughing.

“Okay,” Juyeon says slowly, sticking his chin out like an embarrassed lizard. “I would just like to say that puberty hormones hit me hard, and I do not feel like my teenage self is reflective of my adult self.”

“Uh huh,” Jaehyun and Youngjae chorus simultaneously, each taking sips of their own coffee.

Juyeon makes a face. “I’m gonna go back to my room, I have to get started on this final paper.”

Youngjae makes a noise of vague dismay. “You’re not eating breakfast?” His older brother shakes his head apologetically and presses a quick kiss to his forehead.

“Sorry, I really have to get this done if we’re going to have any time to hang out while you’re here,” Juyeon says contritely. “I’ll make it up to you — we’ll get waffles tomorrow afternoon okay? Those cream ones I told you all about.”

Youngjae turns a startling shade of pink, choking promptly on his spit. “Oh, I- uh…I have plans then,” he mumbles.

Juyeon frowns, but in his sleep-addled state, his little brother’s blatant embarrassment seems to pass him by. “Okay, another day then. Hyung’ll make it up to you,” he says, pressing a last kiss to Youngjae’s head and waving at Jaehyun tiredly, before traipsing slowly off back to his room.

When the door shuts, Jaehyun cocks an eyebrow at the sheepish boy in front of him.

“Plans, huh?”

Youngjae scrunches his nose. “Honestly, I don’t know how he hasn’t realised. It’s genuinely kind of shocking how he knows a million and one things but this thing with Sangyeon hyung just-” he makes a whistling noise as he throws his hand over his shoulder “-right past his head.”

“Yes, the abundant thigh touching in the car yesterday really should’ve given it away,” Jaehyun says dryly. Youngjae sticks his tongue out but looks pleased as punch anyway.

“Have eggs, you little gremlin,” Jaehyun chuckles as he pushes the now cooled off breakfast in front of Juyeon’s little brother. He takes an enormous amount of secret delight in how Youngjae, self-proclaimed picky eater, scarfs down the entire plate in five minutes flat.  
  


* * *

  
Since Youngjae’s return, Jaehyun has tried to spend more time out of the house and with his other friends. It’s not that Juyeon and Youngjae aren’t welcoming — in fact, the two of them consistently whine when Jaehyun turns down their invitations to hang out. It’s just that Jaehyun thinks the two of them deserve some time and space to be alone together.

As such, over the last week or so, he’s seen his other friends a rather gratuitous amount. He met up with Kevin for coffee on Monday, got dinner with him and Jacob on Tuesday, had lunch with Sunwoo on Wednesday, went to rehearsal and dinner with Chanhee after, and saw Sunwoo again Thursday night.

Jaehyun pokes at the slight heaviness in his stomach. All that eating out has taken effect, clearly, and he checks his phone again for the time. It’s Sunday now, and he’s standing underneath Sangyeon’s building waiting for him to show up. Okay, so he’s around fifteen minutes early, but he’s proactive, okay? That’s a good quality, right?

He’s just about to pocket his phone when he sees a familiar silhouette coming around the corner. Sangyeon, dressed rather dashingly in a clean white shirt and dark wash jeans, has an expression on his face that Jaehyun can only, as a good friend, call _dopey._ His eyes glow with an emotion that is uncharacteristically soft, even for Sangyeon’s gentle demeanour, and, most tellingly, he’s chewing on a hangnail with a grin pulling helplessly at his lips.

Jaehyun gapes.

It takes Sangyeon a moment (a moment too long, Jaehyun thinks, with all the moony-eyed looks he’s giving the dirty pavement) to spot Jaehyun, at which point his mouth falls comically open.

“Um.” The only way his wide-eyed stare might be described now is guilty. Sheer and unadulterated, sentenced without parole _guilty_.

Jaehyun’s eyebrows fly up.

“Um indeed,” he deadpans. “Care to explain, mister?”

Sangyeon gnaws on his bottom lip, eyes darting about like a startled animal. “Um,” he says again. Takes a deep shuddery breath, gaze averted before he visibly steels himself and meets Jaehyun’s questioning stare. “I was on a date?”

Jaehyun has to suck his cheeks in to tamp down the suddenly desperate urge to hoot and holler at his red-faced friend.  
  


* * *

  
“Aish, are you kidding?” Sangyeon grouses. “Are we men in our twenties or ahjummas with nothing better to do?”

“Age is normative, gender is a construct,” Jaehyun says distractedly as he locates Juyeon’s contact on his phone. They’re in Sangyeon’s flat now, after Jaehyun had effectively sheep-herded him into his own home and thrown them both onto Sangyeon’s very lovely leather sofa. Under duress, Jaehyun had forced Sangyeon not to move or try and throw himself out of a window as Jaehyun dialled Juyeon’s number.

Sangyeon groans again, but no more than a second later, a video call is loading on Jaehyun’s screen and then —

“Hyung, you’re dating my little brother?!”

Sangyeon’s face looks grim and exasperated under the phone camera and he opens one eye to glare menacingly at Juyeon. It would be more menacing if not for the rosiness rapidly flooding his cheeks and the tops of his ears, and the exhilarated gleam in his eyes.

“Juyeon-ah—”

“Are you _ready_ to take care of him?” Juyeon steamrolls on as if he hadn’t heard him. “Is he ready to take care of you? I’m just- I’m _very concerned about whether either of you is good enough for the other person!_ ” he squawks. “It’s got me feeling very frazzled and you _know_ how I don’t like to be—”

“Hey,” Jaehyun interrupts sternly. Sangyeon’s happy glow had begun to fade into something close to panic and Jaehyun is not about to let that happen. He pokes the front-facing camera firmly to stem the flow of Juyeon’s words. “Only supportive words, Juyeonie,” he lectures disapprovingly.

Beside him, Sangyeon softens, and Juyeon, too, relaxes behind the phone. A remorseful look tugs at his lips. “Fuck, sorry hyung,” he apologises contritely. “I’m actually really happy you guys had a good date.”

Flush back in full force, Sangyeon rolls his eyes and tries to bite back a smile. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. “You—”

Suddenly, the phone is being snatched out of Juyeon’s hands and Youngjae’s indignant yelp is filtering through the speaker — _hyung what the fuck, don’t interrogate him!_

Youngjae’s irritated face appears on Jaehyun’s screen, and Jaehyun instinctively shifts more out of frame to hold the phone closer to Sangyeon. He can visibly see the way fondness seems to bloom across Sangyeon’s face, like a peony opening up under the sun. It makes Jaehyun’s heart _hurt_ with joy.

“Hey, baby,” Sangyeon murmurs softly, almost inadvertently — like he’s forgotten Juyeon and Jaehyun are there.

The beleaguered expression falls off Youngjae’s face and he grins, puppy-like, all bright teeth and sparkling eyes.

“Hey,” he beams back. “Sorry about hyung, he’s just being a dumbass.”

In the background, Jaehyun can hear a resentful _I was just worried for a split second for both of you, okay?_ and Sangyeon chuckles.

“Don’t be so hard on him, Youngjae-yah,” he says gently. “He’s your older brother, of course he’s protective.”

This makes Youngjae scoff, a deeply unattractive sound French-horning its way out of his nose. “ _Please_ , you stand a criminal trial for yourself every time you touch my _shoulder_ ,” he derides. “If anyone’s behaving vulgarly, it would be m—”

 _I am begging you to please, never finish that sentence_ , Juyeon’s voice comes floating through, sounding intensely vexed and terrified.

“Anyway,” Youngjae says, with another roll of his eyes at something outside of the camera’s scope. “I’ll call you later? I have to watch this Polish movie about some guy who, like…runs after a train? I think? It’s meant to be some allegory for Communism…wait, that can’t be right- hyung!” he calls suddenly off camera. “Is that- oh okay. Uh huh. Right.”

He turns back, impervious to the twin expressions of fond amusement on Jaehyun and Sangyeon’s faces. “I don’t know, apparently that was right although I don’t see how it _possibly_ could be. I gotta go, I’ll talk to you later?”

Sangyeon nods quickly. He glances surreptitiously at Jaehyun, who swiftly looks away so that Sangyeon can blow a quick air kiss at his newly inaugurated boyfriend. “Okay, have fun,” he says, sounding embarrassed and proud again.

Based on the sound of smacking lips, Jaehyun has ascertained that Youngjae has returned the sentiment, and turns around in time for Sangyeon to hand him his now dark phone screen.

“So…” he says slowly.

Sangyeon nods, equally paced.

“So that’s a thing then, huh?”

Sangyeon bites back a smile, eyes luminous with something deeper than joy, standing weekly tennis match entirely forgotten.

“Yeah,” he whispers, sounding like he almost can’t believe it himself. “I think so.”

Jaehyun doesn’t bother to hold back the smile that stretches from ear to ear.  
  


* * *

**  
Lee Juyeon**

_Hey hyung?_

_Uh Youngjae just texted me to  
_ _check on you?  
  
_

 _Apparently you’ve been in the  
_ _bathroom for thirty mins and  
_ _he isn’t sure if you need medical  
_ _attention/he “really needs to  
_ _squeeze the lemon” :///_

_Are you alright?_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Oh shit lol sorry I’m fine_

_I just told him it’s all his_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Explain???_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Was squeezing my blackheads_

_It’s a weird obsession but I find  
_ _it bizarrely therapeutic_

**Lee Juyeon**

_FOR THIRTY MINUTES_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_SEOUL IS VERY DIRTY_

_MY PORES HAVE BEEN  
_ _DELUGED WITH GRIME_

**Lee Juyeon**

_I like that word_

_Deluged_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Thanks_

_Heard you use it the other day  
Thought I’d steal it_

**Lee Juyeon**

_Nice_

_Can you squeeze my pores when  
_ _I get home from office hours :(_

 _I just checked my front camera and  
_ _they’re super clogged :(_

**Lee Jaehyun**

_Gross_

_I’d love to  
_

* * *  
  


By the time the basketball game gets to the first quarter, Youngjae is fast asleep on Juyeon's lap.

“Is he not into this?” Jaehyun murmurs quietly to Juyeon on his side, eyes still trained fastidiously on the TV screen. “We can change the channel, I can always catch the game highlights later.”

Beside him, Juyeon strokes a hand through Youngjae’s hair and shakes his head. “No, just tired I think,” he says softly. He, too, is watching the game with keen interest. “He was out late last night with some friends from high school.”

Jaehyun nods, leaning a little into the warmth of Juyeon’s body. “Last hurrah?”

Juyeon nods. Youngjae is leaving Seoul tomorrow, back to the United States to spend Christmas with friends from school before the next semester. Both he and Juyeon know that it’s far less about the American Christmas spirit that Youngjae had mentioned over the phone and far more about the exhaustion of having to believe that their father shows love in iron-clad expectations (because the alternative is that he feels nothing at all).

It’s sad, the light in Juyeon’s eyes as he glances down every once in a while at his little brother’s sleeping form. Jaehyun knows he doesn’t want him to go, even if he knows Youngjae belongs in California, at least for now.

“I can get out of your hair today, go play video games at Jacob’s or something,” he says, nudging Juyeon with his elbow.

Juyeon bites his lip and nods. “Thanks,” he murmurs gratefully. “Stay for a bit. We both like having you here, you know.”

Something about the earnestness in his voice makes Jaehyun squirm, but he quashes the urge. Instead he shrugs and scratches his nose a little bashfully. “Thanks,” he mutters, fist tightening a fraction around Juyeon’s sweatshirt when the team he’s rooting for misses a shot.

They’re silent for a bit, only watching the players run back and forth down the waxed court. It’s when the clock runs to half-time that he turns to Juyeon once more.

“How do you feel?” he asks, running a hand gently down the steady rise and fall of Youngjae’s shoulder.

Juyeon exhales a short puff of breath — a rueful laugh. “About the same as you’d expect,” he murmurs. “Sad. I’ll miss him. But glad too — I know he was happy there. And he’ll be back permanently by the summer anyway, so. Y’know.”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun agrees.

A part of him wonders genuinely if he’ll still be around to see Youngjae return.

“Come with us to the airport, if you’re not busy,” Juyeon says. “God knows I’ll need company while he and hyung are being...” Juyeon sticks his tongue out and makes a face instead of finishing the sentence.

Jaehyun huffs out a laugh. “Sure, seven right?” He reaches forward to push a lock of hair out of Youngjae’s eyes. “Are they staying together, do you know?”

“You kidding? Youngjae’s finally got his claws into hyung, you think he’ll give up that easily?” Juyeon scoffs fondly.

Jaehyun snorts. “Thought you were oblivious this whole time.”

Juyeon rolls his eyes. “Well, I mean, _yeah_ , but I’m not oblivious now. They’re- god, it’s honestly kind of gross how into each other they are. ‘Course they’re gonna say together.”

The two of them look down at Youngjae then, the slight flutter of his dark eyelashes against his cheek and the youthful swell of his lips, slightly puckered in sleep. He doesn’t look that different, Jaehyun thinks, from the way he looked the first day after the plane or the way he looked over all those video calls. There’s nothing discernibly new in his appearance, no palpable change, and yet — he sees it.

The love that seems to soften every angle on his face. It must be a placebo, he thinks, to see love on someone’s face — there’s no reason to believe it causes any phenotypical shift, after all. And yet it’s there, isn’t it?

Jaehyun wonders briefly what his face would look like if he were in love, too.  
  


* * *  
  


Sometime in early December, as winter finally sets into something cold and barren across the city, and a week or so after Youngjae goes back to L.A., Jaehyun gets into an argument with his mother. Well, not quite an argument, but something that leaves him feeling a little ugly and empty inside anyway.

It doesn’t start off so fraught, of course. It starts off as a phone call much like any other, the kind Jaehyun has after work even though he’s extra braindead today, mind filled with deadlines and that ever-persistent desire to make music as he waits for his leftover dakgalbi chicken and rice to heat up.

“Yoon Hyunjung-ssi’s daughter came home last week, did I tell you Jaehyun-ah?” his mother is saying as he waits. He can hear the sound of her cooking chopsticks scraping against their old frying pan and the steady sizzle of oil crackling in the background.

“Oh?” Jaehyun asks, somewhat disinterestedly. He never particularly cared for the small town gossip even when he was there, and now he cares about it even less after moving _out_ of the small town. His mother, however, takes that as the signal to barrel ahead.

“Yes, well, it’s good that she’s home and all - even in Busan, nowhere near as chaotic as the capital, and she preferred our Uiseong - but what a frivolous reason she came home for,” his mother sniffs delicately. “Nerve troubles, Hyunjung-ssi said, which we all know what _that’s_ code for. Really, it’s shocking how some young people lack any resilience nowadays.”

Pulled out of his absent reverie abruptly, Jaehyun balks and stops short. The microwave had beeped as the time ran out halfway through her spiel, but he was too distracted by his mother’s words to take his food out at the prompt. “What do you mean?” he asks slowly instead.

His mother huffs on the line, and Jaehyun hears the sound of the stove fan shutting off. She must be done cooking, he realises, and this reminds him to take his own food out. It’s still very hot thankfully, the meat steaming when it rolls over at the slight tip of the bowl.

“I see it all the time nowadays on Kakao Story, young people talking about mental health this and difficulty that. Yours sister, too, goes on and on about it,” his mother says with a hint of displeasure in her voice. “They spend all day complaining about how hard it is that they actually start to believe their lives are difficult.”

Jaehyun can feel his hackles rising, a sensation that he finds happens more and more often these days, coming in a tension between his eyebrows, an unyielding grip between his shoulder blades. “Maybe their lives are actually hard, eomma,” he says, trying not to grit his teeth.

Over the grainy phone connection, Jaehyun can hear his mother scoff. “Some, maybe,” she says dismissively. “But the majority of those people would be happier if they stopped complaining about how unhappy they were.”

Jaehyun stills, uncertain of how to reply. See, this is the other source of tension — not the words his parents say that grate against his skin but the feeling of not having the right words to reply with the formless thoughts in his head.

For a frustrating moment, Jaehyun wishes he were Juyeon, with that ceaseless list of facts and figures in his mind to rebuff his mother’s words, with a tone of voice like warmed sugar to soothe over the chafe afterwards.

But that’s not even really the issue, is the thing. The thing - the _real_ thing - is, Jaehyun has begun feeling like he and his parents aren’t speaking the same language anymore.

It had started off slow, this sinking realisation, just words lost here and there and Jaehyun had chalked it up to a generational difference. No big deal. Nothing to be alarmed about.

Only, the words grew in number, until they became phrases and then sentences and then paragraphs, until Jaehyun woke up today and called his mother only to find that he didn’t even have the words to articulate his thoughts in a language she’d understand —

Not because he didn’t have them at all, either, the statistics about depression in young Koreans, the proof that open conversation makes for a healthier nation of people, but because the words in his mouth were no longer intelligible to his parents, because the four hour train ride between them had expanded somehow to entire oceans and civilisations of lost words that Jaehyun could no less find than he could try and understand himself how they had grown so far apart.

It startles him how lonely he suddenly feels. Jaehyun thinks of Juyeon’s red-rimmed eyes only a few weeks ago as he recounted a documentary he had just finished when Jaehyun had gotten home from work, about a whale, the 52 Hertz whale, and how it called at the unusual frequency of 52 Hz — a frequency unlike any other species’ call. _Loneliest creature in the world_ , Juyeon had called it.

Jaehyun had chuckled, hadn’t he? Chuckled and folded himself around Juyeon and said, “No one’s really alone in this world, Juyeon-ah, don’t cry. Come get samgyeopsal with me, yes?” Jaehyun thinks of Seoul and of Uiseong now, of the words he can’t find in either world, of the 52 Hz no other whale can call out at.

 _No one’s really alone in this world_ , huh? The irony is as funny as it is sad.

“Jaehyun-ah.”

His mother’s voice interrupts his thoughts, and, he realises with a jolt, she sounds sad, too.

“Eomma?”

He hears the sound of something wooden being set down, a clatter against the kitchen counter, and the heaviness of his mother’s sigh.

“Sometimes I feel like we don’t know each other anymore,” his mother admits quietly. Something inside Jaehyun splinters, then, the mille feuille of _alone-not alone in feeling alone-still alone_ hitting him all at once.

“Oh,” he says, voice a little cracked. “Oh.”

"Ah. So you feel it too," his mother notes, regretful and soft at once.

Jaehyun swallows thickly. “Yeah. I do.” When she doesn’t say anything else, he adds - like a compulsion - “I’m sorry, eomma.”

“Aish!” his mother exclaims. “Why apologise? It’s not your fault, Jaehyunie, nor mine.” She pauses, as if to gather her thoughts. “I wish...I wish I knew how to keep up. With you and Jiwoo, but this happens you- you know,” and the break, the quiver in her voice makes Jaehyun’s face fall rapidly, something hot and frenetic rising in his chest and throat and eyes.

“Eomma!” he cries. “Are you—”

“I’m not anything, Jaehyun-ah,” his mother interrupts hurriedly. “You should go eat your dinner, didn’t the microwave beep a while ago? And your appa is waiting for me.”

“Don’t- eomma, don’t just go like that, come on,” Jaehyun implores. “I didn’t- I don’t know why- eomma, I’m sorry, I’ve been a bad son.”

His mother sniffs, and now the lump is rising in Jaehyun’s throat as he listens to his mother clear her own. “Don’t say that, you have never been a bad son to me,” she rebuffs gently. “I only…” she trails off, and Jaehyun can almost see her biting her lip the way he does, the way Jiwoo does, as she leans against the counter with the food still piping hot on the stove.

“Anything, eomma,” he urges. “What is it?”

She sighs and chuckles wetly. “I only hope your home is still with us. In Uiseong, son. I know your friends, all the people you've met, I know they all mean a lot to you and I’m glad you have them. But I hope your father and I, and your noona of course, I hope we’re still your _family_.”

Isn’t it painfully ironic, then, how cold and dreadfully desolate Jaehyun feels when _he_ had been the one to give too much of himself away to begin with?

Hadn’t he said ‘Anything, eomma’ and meant it so earnestly, too, in that moment? He had and he had been genuine, and so as the mercury settles into his vascular system, spreading like parasites across entire forests of trees until they’re empty and barren, he wonders whose fault it really is.

If it was his own, for promising things he couldn’t give, or his mother’s, for accidentally trapping him in a snare so sweet and laden with love that Jaehyun feels prepared to let himself drown in the honey before pulling his limbs free.

His voice is hollow when he says the words she wants to hear — and how can he blame her, really, when he’s never told her how the guilt she builds so thoughtlessly festers in his chest? Perhaps she had come to assume that he would say no the way Jiwoo said no at the drop of the hat, when instead that two lettered word curled up in his mouth every time and lay there to decay.

“Yes, eomma. Of course — always you,” Jaehyun utters.

“Ah,” his mother makes a sigh of satisfaction, a little watery still but warm once more. “I love you, Jaehyun-ah. I have always been proud to call you my son.”

“Thank you,” Jaehyun says, barely above a whisper. “I should- I should go, eomma, you have a good dinner, okay, and I’ll talk to you soon?”

His mother bids him goodbye, tells him to take care of himself, that she loves him once more, and when the dial tone plays, monotonous and long, Jaehyun finds that his chest feels like a vacant house.  
  


* * *  
  


It’s hours later when Juyeon gets home from the library. Jaehyun doesn’t hear him come in at first, sunk too deep into the steady hum of the record he’s had on loop for the last few hours to notice the sound of the doorknob turning and that telltale creak.

It’s not until he hears the rumble and hiss of the kettle, the familiar gait on the floorboard shuffling around the kitchen that he realises Juyeon has come back.

Jaehyun bolts up in his bed.

When he opens his bedroom door, Juyeon is facing away from him and towards the counter, steeping his strainer full of green tea leaves in a mug with an oil painting bedroom scene embossed onto its shiny surface. Jaehyun pads silently down the hallway, only two, three, four steps, until he comes, not crashing, but sinking, into the valley of Juyeon’s shoulder blades.

Juyeon stiffens for a fraction of a second before he relaxes, remaining mindfully still even so.

“Tough day?” he murmurs into the still air. Winter has brought with it the first wave of real cold, and Jaehyun finds himself wearing socks and doubled-up layers of old sweatshirts around the house, but Juyeon is warm.

“Mm,” Jaehyun whispers back. His arms, though they itch to wrap themselves around Juyeon’s solid frame, fold inwards instead so that his hands are held together like he’s cupping a lotus flower in them. Like this, with them pressed into the deepest point of the cleft in Juyeon’s back, he holds himself there. There’s nothing that surrounds him, no arms nor bodies, but Jaehyun feels encapsulated in something so familiar and comforting that he half _aches_ with it.

Juyeon doesn’t say much more, merely stands there, sipping his tea at the island counter, while Jaehyun relearns how to breathe in the dale between his shoulders.

When finally he feels half full and no longer half empty, Jaehyun raises his head, just a little. It’s risky, a part of him knows, to press his lips into Juyeon’s left shoulder blade, but he does it anyway. Speaks into it, “Is this my home, Juyeon-ah? Are you- are we - you and me and Sangyeon hyung and Chanhee and Kevin and Jacob - are we family?”

He knows the answer Juyeon will give, of course, but it’s mollifying to hear it anyway.

“Of course it is. Of course we are, hyung.”

Jaehyun sighs, feels his breath get trapped into the thick fabric of Juyeon’s T-shirt and linger there, heat woven briefly into the cotton.

“For how long?” he asks, unsure this time.

To his surprise, Jaehyun finds that one can feel a smile in the muscle right above the scapula. Or, more accurately perhaps, Jaehyun finds that he can feel _Juyeon’s_ smile, without seeing it or hearing it, in that exact muscle along the planes of his back. It comes before his reply does, and in that split second before the words have left Juyeon’s lips, Jaehyun realises that, like the previous answer, he doesn’t need to hear it to know what it is.

“As long as you want it to be,” Juyeon says. “You will always have a home here, with us — if you want it, I mean,” he adds like he thinks Jaehyun might ever not.

“Yeah?” he asks anyway, because Jaehyun finds he likes taking this thing that Juyeon so freely gives him every time.

His roommate finally turns around, tea still clutched in his left hand and right hand settled loosely on Jaehyun’s bicep.

“You're not even actually asking, are you?” And his eyes are so very merry that a surprised laugh bursts out of Jaehyun before he can stop it.

They stand there, encased in twilight and the smell of jasmine green tea, chuckling, faces so close that their breaths barely have time to escape before they’re inhaled by one of them or the other.

“No,” Jaehyun chuckles, and his own eyes feel like they’re dancing too. “I guess I’m not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> I did want to say that for the record, I didn't write this fic to make readers hate Jaehyun's parents. You can, of course, take what you want out of it, but to me, that's not what this story is about. It's much more about how someone who's always had an unconditional sort of devotion to their parents navigates the realisation that parents are imperfect people.
> 
> I don't think Jaehyun's parents are bad parents, for all of their continuous failings, and I hope you don't hate them. They have a lot to learn but there is love there even amidst the ignorance and the callousness. Again, obviously your call what you take away from this fic!
> 
> Bibliographic note: the movie Youngjae references is the 1987 Polish film, Blind Chance.
> 
> As always, your comments and kudos mean the world to me. If you catch any spelling or grammatical errors, please let me know!
> 
> The next update will be on Sunday, 14th of March KST.
> 
> If you want to chat or get updates on my work, come find me on Twitter (link in profile)!
> 
> \- Anon


	5. V.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Fine,” he grumbles. “I wanna be pretty.” It’s a joke, but Juyeon doesn’t laugh this time.
> 
> Instead he leans in close, thighs shockingly hot where they cage Jaehyun’s ankles in, and touches the apex of Jaehyun’s left cheek with his hand. “Close your eyes,” he requests gently. Jaehyun does so, heart rate suddenly picking up. “Pretty hyung. Prettiest hyung,” Juyeon breathes, like a confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Happy Sunday and welcome to chapter five! 
> 
> Trigger warnings in this chapter:
> 
> * Internalised homophobia on Jaehyun's part.
> 
> * Discussions and scenes depicting a depressive episode. It isn't graphic or very explicit in my opinion, but please keep in mind that it is there (the scene ends not-sadly if you are concerned about that). 
> 
> Also there is a brief, non-graphic description of sex between two characters in this chapter. Decide for yourself whether or not you are at an age where it is appropriate to be consuming this content. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

When Kevin summons them all to a night on the town (read: drunken and dubiously Christmas themed debauchery at his and Jacob’s flat) that weekend, there’s no real way to say no. It’s not like any of them want to refuse anyway, and Jaehyun especially feels the urge to balm over the lingering abrasiveness in his chest from the phone call with his mother as well as the exhaustion of a rough couple weeks at work.

On Saturday night, after a long day at the studio putting in overtime hours on a pain of a podcast episode to record, Jaehyun traipses into the flat to find it somewhat more upturned than usual.

Of course, it had already been in a state of disarray earlier on — research notes everywhere, scanned copies of angry handwritten German - _isn’t it funny that all those great minds puzzled through the building blocks of society but couldn’t maintain readable handwriting, hyung?_ \- and more takeout boxes than Jaehyun cares to admit. All of that’s gone now, replaced by an entirely new sort of dishevelment.

“Uh, what’s going on?”

“What- oh,” Juyeon says distractedly. “Oh hyung, you're home, good, I think we have to leave in- an hour? No, fifty minutes, so I’m just gonna keep—” His hand makes a volatile circle in the air.

Jaehyun blinks and stares at his roommate. Juyeon has about two and a half shirts over his upper body and one pair of pants on, while his feet are shoved haphazardly into two very different shoes.

“What’s the _vision_ here, Juyeon-ah?” Jaehyun asks, indicating loosely at the sartorial anarchy that is his roommate’s outfit.

Juyeon frowns and makes a face. “You’ve been hanging out with Chanhee too much,” he mutters. “And I _know_ , I’m not wearing all of this at once, I just can’t pick.”

Jaehyun snorts and dumps his bag on the barstool. “You look good in everything, I don’t see the problem.” He almost misses the way Juyeon goes immediately carnation, eyes suddenly brighter than before. “That- uh, that is—” Jaehyun coughs awkwardly, instantly mortified at his own runaway mouth.

“You guys know I’m still here, right?”

Youngjae’s voice is a little nasally and a lot pseudo-irritated as it comes through Juyeon’s phone speaker. “I just wanted to check, cause it seemed like you guys were about to have the kind of moment you wouldn’t want me here for, which, like, more power to you guys, but also I thought it was my ethical obligation as another human being to let you know that I’m still here. Listening. To all of it.”

“Yes, thank you,” Juyeon says loudly, face still beet red. He picks his phone up from the kitchen counter and thrusts it in Jaehyun’s face. “Say hello to hyung, Youngjae-yah.”

“Hello to hyung, Youngjae-yah,” Youngjae repeats dutifully, a grin pulling against his white teeth. “Wow you look like shit, are you going to the party like that?”

“Yah!” Jaehyun cries. He’s wearing a _reasonably_ clean grey hoodie and black sweatpants. Okay, so it’s not the most stylish he’s ever been - those sweatpants have nothing on his Gap jeans - but still. ‘Shit’ feels a bit reductive. “I look fine, you little dickhead.”

Youngjae huffs and blows bleached blonde hair out of his eyes. It’s styled nicely today, Jaehyun admits begrudgingly in his head, paler highlights laid over dark, almost toffee tones, and done in soft waves. He’s not going to say that out _loud_ though — what an utterly preposterous notion.

“You’re going to a party where everyone else will be dressed nicely and you’re wearing a hoodie. With a - is that whipped cream or something more salacious? - stain on the chest.”

Jaehyun looks down wildly and _fuck_ , Youngjae is right. “It’s whipped cream, asshole,” he defends quickly, face burning once more. “And I wasn’t going to wear this to the party, I’m not that bad.”

“Mm,” Youngjae hums noncommittally. “Well, now that there are two of you, maybe you can form a little echo chamber for each other to talk about how ‘athleisure _should_ stay in style’ and ‘you’re so right, Gap _does_ have the best jeans.’”

Juyeon, who has since shed his two extra layers of upper-body clothing items and is now standing in their living room with a threadbare white T-shirt with a collar that is far too loose, grabs the phone back from Jaehyun.

“I don’t like this new L.A. sass you’ve got going on, Youngjae,” he says solemnly to his little brother. “There is nothing wrong with prioritising comfort and—”

“Ooh I gotta go, morning yoga on the quad is starting,” Youngjae exclaims. “Bye hyungie, love you!”

And then he’s gone, and Juyeon and Jaehyun are staring at each other with matching helpless-yet-disgruntled expressions.

“Morning yoga?” Jaehyun scrunches his nose. “What time is it there?”

Juyeon deposits his phone on the counter and shrugs. “Six AM.”

Jaehyun gags, eliciting a soft chuckle from his roommate. “I’m gonna go finish getting changed,” Juyeon says as he makes for his room. “Youngjae was just messing around you know, you can wear whatever you want.”

Jaehyun tries to keep the dubious look off his face and nods. “Sure, okay. I’m just gonna fuckin’ pick something and if you look between five to ten times nicer than me, I’ll change, but if you don’t, I’m sticking with The Gap.”

Juyeon shoots him encouraging finger guns and disappears down the hall.

* * *

  
“Alright, I know I said I would change if you looked ten times nicer than me but I’ve decided I’m committed to the clothes on my body,” Jaehyun announces as he barges into Juyeon’s bedroom.

It’s empty, and Jaehyun frowns briefly before Juyeon calls to him from behind the closed bathroom door.

“In here, hyung! Door’s unlocked.”

Jaehyun huffs and restarts his tirade now that he knows where his target audience is.

“Seriously—”

He pushes the door open then stops abruptly, sentence aborted before it had even really begun.

“Hey, s’rry just gimme a sec, I can’t really m’ltitask,” Juyeon mumbles with his mouth hung comically open.

It’s not the sight of his friend - his _best_ friend - with his mouth gaped like a bewildered goldfish that gives Jaehyun pause, nor the apparent natural disaster that has overtaken their shared bathroom. The real cause of his calamity, the true source of his shaken demeanour, is the sight of Juyeon with a pen held up to his lovely, brush-stroke shaped eyes as he silhouettes them in ink.

If Jaehyun were a literary man, he might wonder at the irony - poeticism? An extended metaphor? - of the way a black brush-tip draws the stroke of Juyeon’s dark eyes out farther, lingering until it tapers off to a point as precipitous and unyielding as an escarpment, but—

But Jaehyun is not, and in reality, all he can focus on is the flutter of Juyeon’s eyelashes as he blinks after pulling the pen away from his face, the mulberry stain at the centre of his lips, and the slight amber shadows that the bathroom sconce casts on the contours of Juyeon’s face.

Simple things. Gut reactions.

Juyeon finishes the second line on his left eye and steps back to peer discerningly at his face. What he sees must be satisfactory because his stiff squint melts into something placidly content. He turns and smiles brightly at Jaehyun.

“Okay, you have my undivided attention,” he grins. “Is this what you’re wearing? You look nice, hyung.”

The reason he’d burst so unceremoniously into the room comes rushing back to Jaehyun, and his cheeks heat up as he looks down at his own outfit.

“Thanks,” he mumbles. “Not too- uh, ghoulish? Goth?”

Juyeon chuckles. “You make black on black look very cool,” he says placatingly, talking, of course, about the fact that Jaehyun had picked a dark grey loose T-shirt and shoved it unceremoniously over black skinny jeans. Kevin and Sangyeon had tried to get him to buy the ripped version at the store weeks ago, but Jaehyun had put his foot unscrupulously down — _What am I, a punk? Not on my life, Jesus Christ._

“Besides,” Juyeon says as he turns back to the mirror. “Didn’t you say you had committed to the look regardless?” His eyes curl playfully at Jaehyun in the reflection.

Jaehyun huffs and feigns haughty irritation to cover up the fact that his brain is still slowly rebooting. “Yes, well, if you said it was atrocious, I would’ve changed. Probably.”

Juyeon’s smile grows soft and a little tender around the edges. “Not atrocious. You always look good,” he says gently. “Really good. Handsome.”

Jaehyun viciously fights down the urge to cough. Instead he settles for scratching his nose awkwardly and accepting the fact that his face is the colour of gochugaru. “Right. Well- right.” A lone cough slips out past the fortress walls. “Whatcha doin’ then?” he asks roughly.

Perhaps Jaehyun is more transparent than he’d realised, or Juyeon is just that good at reading him, but either way, Juyeon’s lips twitch at the corners like he’s fighting down a smile. Graciously, he says, “Just some makeup. Figured I’d make an effort tonight.”

And he has. The collar of his black shirt falls open and loose around the pitches and slopes of his shoulder to reveal lines of clavicle - _always the clavicle,_ Jaehyun laments to himself, _just like last time_ \- and the rest of the fabric, tessellated in bohemian ochre, blue, and Sedona, flows casually downwards against his frame.

“S’good Juyeonie,” Jaehyun compliments stiltedly. “Y’look good.”

Juyeon beams and rubs his finger into a small compact of some squares that are shimmery and beige. Champagne? “Thanks!”

Jaehyun settles himself on the closed toilet seat to observe his roommate’s doings with closer attention. “What’s that?”

Juyeon's eyes flicker down briefly before he looks back up at himself. “Eyeshadow,” he replies, tongue sticking out of his mouth just a fraction. “Why, you want some?”

The question is teasing and meant to be funny, Jaehyun can tell, and ordinarily he would rib right back. Only today, in this slightly odd and hazy liminal space that is their warmly-lit bathroom after an exhausting few weeks at work and an even more exhausting few weeks in his own head, Jaehyun suddenly feels awash with the desire to do something new.

A tiny voice in the back of his head whispers callously, _you really think this’ll change anything? Grow up._

_You don’t do things like this._

“Wait, do you? ‘Cause you can totally use any of my stuff, hyung,” Juyeon says, a thrum of excitement running through his words. “Oh my god, you- okay no pressure, absolutely none, but also you would look _so_ good.”

Jaehyun looks up, eyes darting uncertainly back and forth between Juyeon’s, searching for the joke. He finds none.

“Really?” he finally asks. “You think so?”

Juyeon breathes out an excited huff and twitches a little where he’s standing. “Oh my god, _yeah_. Want me to do it for you? I don’t know if you’ve ever put makeup on, so I can if you like?”

At this, Jaehyun levels a flat look Juyeon’s way. “Do you really think I’ve ever put makeup on myself?” he asks impassively. “Really, Juyeon-ah? You think Uiseong-eup was a good place for young, adolescent Jaehyun hyung to explore his gender expression using products typically used by women alone because the gender binary was _sooo_ blurred in our lovely little garlic town?”

Juyeon sucks in his cheeks and seems to swallow a laugh.

“No need to get pissy with me,” he murmurs with barely concealed amusement.

Jaehyun harrumphs and allows Juyeon to approach with his eyeshadow in hand. “What do you think you want done?” his friend asks softly as he kneels, fingertips ghosting ever so slightly over Jaehyun’s forehead to push some strands of hair out of the way.

Suddenly, Jaehyun is rather regretting the impulsive decision to put on makeup as some sort of silent proof to himself that he’s _different_ from his parents. He hadn’t anticipated how close Juyeon’s face would be, so close that Jaehyun can count the tiniest freckles that are scattered disparately over his cheekbones and feel his warm breath washing over Jaehyun’s skin.

“Did you brush your teeth?” he blurts out in a harried whisper. “You- you’re _minty?_ ”

Juyeon’s eyes flicker back to his from where they had been trailing slowly over his face and he smiles a small intimate thing. “Yeah,” he whispers, equally hushed. “Always do b’fore going out.”

It’s strange, how in a city of 9.7 million people and the relentless rush of metropolitan life, this bathroom in their small, tucked away flat feels like it’s been suspended in time. It’s almost like being submerged in water - and oh, how Jaehyun remembers all those hot summers of swimming in the Bingye valley, river water sharp and cold against his skin - in the way the world seems to go suddenly silent, eardrums filled with pressure and a dull, muted warble.

Jaehyun finds himself holding his breath, like he’s afraid anything louder than a murmur or slow exhale of air might send their tenuous sequestration, as delicate and ephemeral as the spun sugar bought from amber-lit fairgrounds, disintegrating into thin air.

“Go on then,” he murmurs. “Make me look good.”

Juyeon throws him a disbelieving glance before directing his attention back to his things. “Always look good,” he mumbles, sounding almost cross — like the insinuation otherwise offends him personally somehow.

He picks up a small compact of glittery brown colours and holds it up to Jaehyun’s face. “I think this will look nice on your skin tone,” he frowns, biting his bottom lip. “It’s kinda hard to tell cause I’m a lot tanner than you but I think it’ll be good. Right?”

Jaehyun eyes him dispassionately. “I have to say, I am rapidly losing confidence in this scheme.”

Some of the air deflates out of their protective cocoon, the preciousness of the moment melting ever so slightly to give way to the familiarity and comfort of their back and forth. It simultaneously makes Jaehyun less and more nervous, the knowledge that Juyeon is floating castles in the air as well as the unpretentious warmth of barley tea.

Juyeon rolls his eyes and taps Jaehyun lightly on the nose. “Don’t be so acerbic, hyung, I know you're loving this,” he reprimands. “I’ll do a good job, promise.”

He opens the little compact and swirls his ring finger in one of the colours that reminds Jaehyun of sweet red beans. “Sorry, I don’t have any brushes,” Juyeon apologises softly, “But my hands are clean and it might be easier this way anyway.”

Jaehyun peeks at Juyeon’s large hands and the way they’re ludicrously engulfing the plastic square. “How’d you get so good at fiddly things like this, Juyeon-ah? You’re not exactly dexterous day to day.”

Juyeon’s mouth twists embarrassedly and he shrugs. “I guess practice makes perfect. I’ve been doing my own makeup for years now,” he explains. He looks at the colour on his finger, glimmering and iridescent under the light. “Besides, I’m _clumsy_ day to day, not lacking in dexterity.”

“Two sides of the same coin,” Jaehyun mumbles. “I don’t— hey! What’re you doing?”

In the back of his mind, Jaehyun had imagined that the opaline bubble that is this private, secret moment between them was a gossamer-thin thing. Who would’ve known that the breaking of a warm smile on the dark raspberry of Juyeon’s glazed mouth was an impenetrable force, impervious to however loud or soft Jaehyun is in that moment.

The balmy cocoon around them seems to tighten in fact, fortify, still.

“What?” Juyeon asks, laughter dancing in his eyes. “What now?”

“You did the eyeliner thing on yourself first,” Jaehyun accuses petulantly.

Juyeon stutters incredulously before a soft chuckle spills out of his lips. “You’re so obstinate,” he teases, and his tone can only be called fond. “I did the eyeliner first ‘cause I was using the eyeshadow as highlighter on my cheek- never mind, just trust me, okay?”

Jaehyun squints at him discerningly for a moment, trying to gauge if he’s being given the short end of the stick. When he finds no duplicity in Juyeon’s open expression - only fondness, tenderness — _God,_ when did this all get so intimate? - he sighs and acquiesces.

“Fine,” he grumbles. “I wanna be pretty.” It’s a joke, but Juyeon doesn’t laugh this time.

Instead he leans in close, thighs shockingly hot where they cage Jaehyun’s ankles in, and touches the apex of Jaehyun’s left cheek with his hand. “Close your eyes,” he requests gently. Jaehyun does so, heart rate suddenly picking up. “Pretty hyung. Prettiest hyung,” Juyeon breathes, like a confession.

Everything inside of Jaehyun cavorts tumultuously at that first touch of fingertip to eyelid — heart in his throat, stomach by his feet, brain melted down into the grotto of his ribs. Not swallowing every other second becomes an exercise in self-restraint as Juyeon’s touch whispers over his skin, first his right eye and then his left.

When he feels Juyeon’s finger leave his skin, Jaehyun’s eyes begin to flutter open, but Juyeon stops him with a softly ordered, “Keep them closed.”

Jaehyun frowns in confusion, but soon, Juyeon is touching him again, sending shivers that feel like vibratos down his neck and spine. “Just getting another colour,” Juyeon explains. “To blend this one in a little bit.”

Jaehyun hums, hardly listening at all.

The moment extends, pulled out like saltwater taffy on a hot day, and everything blurs and distils until it’s only —

the heat of Juyeon’s skin on his,

until it’s only —

the thumb caressing his jaw even though its sole job is to hold him still,

until it’s only —

Juyeon in every pore and cell and aperture, until Jaehyun feels so filled to the brim with Juyeon that there’s no telling where the seam of their conjoined beings is or if there was ever a seam at all.

Finally, at some point in time that is impossible to discern, Juyeon whispers, “I’m gonna smudge some dark eyeshadow instead of doing a liner just in case your eyes are sensitive. Is it okay if I do your lips and cheeks after? Or did you just want eye makeup?”

Jaehyun’s eyes twitch open and he peeks at Juyeon from under hooded lids. “S’ fine,” he mumbles, and his voice sounds drunk, stuporous, in a singularly mortifying way. “Do whatever you want.”

From what little he can see of Juyeon - only the long line of a neck, grinning mouth, white teeth - he ascertains that his roommate has beamed the beam where his eyes almost disappear under the force of his smile.

“Cool,” Juyeon murmurs happily. “Okay, liner quickly and then cheeks and lips.”

It’s startling and a little terrifying how easy it is to lose himself in Juyeon’s touch once more. Jaehyun barely registers the easy dance Juyeon does from Jaehyun’s eyes to his cheekbones, to his lips, hardly notices the change in texture of product from powder to cream.

“There,” Juyeon announces after a while. “Perfect!” He sounds endearingly self-satisfied, and Jaehyun’s mouth curls upwards of its own volition.

“Yeah?” he asks, eyes opening to find a sight that half robs him of his breath — Juyeon smiling and looking back at him like Jaehyun might somehow be—

He blinks away the thought. “Let’s see then,” he says quickly, standing up to lean over the sink and stare at himself in the large mirror.

Jaehyun isn’t vain, or at least he doesn’t think so. Sometimes he catches Juyeon smiling at his own reflection in glass windows or mirrored surfaces, so reminiscent of a pleased puppy or kitten that Jaehyun has to fight to keep his laughter down. He doesn’t do that, not ever, really, except—

Except now, Jaehyun can’t help but marvel at the way his skin seems to glow, pearlescent and dewy, can’t help but stare at the way his eyes look warmer somehow, mahogany under the sable and russet of Juyeon’s artfully smudged eyeshadow. Only…

“My lip- colour, thing. It’s not the same as yours,” Jaehyun blurts out.

He sees Juyeon startle in the reflection. “Oh, you- did you want the same colour as mine?”

Jaehyun considers the question for a moment, half unsure why he’d even pointed it out in the first place. The reason is there, lurking under the surface, insidious and waiting to grab him by the wrist, but Jaehyun shakes it off to turn and say in a forced casual voice, “I thought it would be nice?”

Juyeon smiles and picks up a small tube the colour of blackberry jam. “Hold still then,” he says, as he pulls out the applicator. Jaehyun follows his instructions dutifully, waiting patiently as Juyeon carefully swipes it over his lips.

“Alright,” he declares. “Now you’re perfect.”

He takes Jaehyun by the shoulders and whirls him around to face the mirror, chin resting shyly on Jaehyun’s shoulder.

If Jaehyun had admired himself before, now the sight in front of him sends a giddy _thrill_ right through his veins.

Their lips, although entirely different in shape and form, wear twin blots of colour, concentrated at the centre and blended towards the outer edges, and Jaehyun finds that that secret little voice in his head, the one that is weaker than he but not always, surges up his ventricles before he can stop it and whispers with ill-concealed glee,

_It looks like we kissed._

Panic thrums through him viciously fast, travelling down the powerlines of his veins so swiftly that it feels like a one-two pulse of energy, speeding, speeding, speeding until—

“Ready to go?” Juyeon asks softly from his shoulder. Jaehyun’s roommate - his friend, his best friend, _his_ \- smiles at him in the crystal clear echo above their sink.

Jaehyun swallows, once then twice. Reaches in through the layers of connective tissue and muscle and rips the powerlines right out. Nods.

“Let’s go,” he says.

How remarkable it is that ‘going’ feels like _falling_.

* * *

  
Kevin and Jacob’s flat is far hotter than Jaehyun had expected a drafty, poorly insulated apartment in an old building to be, but it seems that the bite of December air outside has encouraged all the partygoers to practice what Jaehyun had seen emperor penguins do to fight the cold on Juyeon’s most recent documentary favourite the night before.

Which is a dramatic way of saying — they’re all fucking huddled together in the middle of the room.

“Did you know it would be this packed?” Jaehyun asks with a hint of accusation in his voice. Juyeon stands warily at the threshold of their friends’ apartment with him as the two of them survey the veritable mosh pit.

“No,” Juyeon responds honestly. He pauses, thinking for a second, before piping up, “Hey, does this kind of remind you of—”

“The penguins?”

“Yeah!” Juyeon exclaims excitedly. “Social thermoregulation. Such incredibly intelligent creatures they are,” he marvels.

Jaehyun has to deliver a swift upper cut to the adoration he feels bubbling up in his chest. “Let’s go in?” he asks. Juyeon nods decisively and the two of them push and elbow their way through the apartment, searching valiantly for a familiar face amidst Kevin and Jacob’s shockingly abundant body of acquaintances.

“Hey! Over here you guys,” Sangyeon calls from a corner near the balcony. “We were wondering when you’d show up.”

The fabric at the collar of Jaehyun’s winter puffer-coat is rapidly beginning to get moist, and there’s a suspicious dampness gathering at Juyeon’s red-headed temple.

“Fuck it’s hot,” Jaehyun complains once he’s safely in the little crevice of Sangyeon’s own making. “When’d you get here, hyung?”

“Er, maybe ten, twenty minutes ago? I came right from a shoot, I didn’t realise you’d all dress up,” he chuckles ruefully, looking pointedly down at his own grey university hoodie and black sweatpants.

Juyeon nudges him with his shoulder in a reprimand. “Stop, you look great!”

“Your thighs look insane in those pants,” Jaehyun adds, and Sangyeon’s face flushes red.

“You- ugh,” he groans into his hands. “Can you both go get yourselves a drink and leave me alone? Maybe make sure Chanhee isn’t on top of one of Kevin’s foreign teacher friends?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jaehyun teases, feeling unbearably fond and a little playful as he takes in the bright red colour creeping up Sangyeon’s neck. “Want another one?” He indicates loosely at the beer Sangyeon has been nursing this whole time.

His friend starts a fraction, eyes widening in surprise. “Wha- oh,” he exclaims. Amusement lights up in his gaze. “No, I’m good with just the one thanks. Doctor’s orders,” he says, like he knows something funny that Jaehyun doesn’t.

Jaehyun frowns and opens his mouth to enquire further, but Juyeon has a hand around his wrist and the dry heat of fingers wrapping around his forearm makes him jump.

As they push their way through the crowd, the apartment teeming with people of all shapes and sizes and ethnicities, Jaehyun asks Juyeon, “What did hyung mean? Is he sick?”

Juyeon throws him an amused glance backwards. “He’s fine, great actually. Testosterone and alcohol just don’t mix super well,” he explains. “We’ve all gotten used to him capping at one drink so I guess he was kind of surprised to hear you ask.” Juyeon smiles at him as they’re thrust into the kitchen by the sheer force of bodies giving way.

“Oh,” Jaehyun enunciates intelligently. “Right. That was dumb of me.”

“What was dumb of you?” a voice asks in his ear as hands wind their way around his shoulders. Jacob is slightly pink from alcohol or heat, Jaehyun can’t tell, and he smells like the coconut shampoo he uses.

“Nothing, ignore him,” Juyeon replies with a droll grin as he pulls alcohol out of Jacob’s fridge. “Hyung, you don’t mind if I—”

“Juyeonie, for the millionth time, no, I don’t mind if you serve yourself,” Jacob says with a fond eye roll. “I like your make up, Jaehyun-ah, did you do it yourself?”

Of course, Jacob’s question is a casual, innocuous thing, but thinking back to the other-worldly pocket of moments separate from space and time that had been the entire ordeal, Jaehyun can’t help but flush. “Oh- uh, Juyeon did it for me,” he mumbles.

Jaehyun can feel Jacob detach himself from Jaehyun’s back, can see and hear him congratulating Juyeon on a job well done as he pours himself a couple fingers of soju, but it’s like the world has dissolved around them, confectioner’s sugar in warm water, and it’s only Jaehyun and Juyeon illuminated in the darkness.

It makes Jaehyun feel all sorts of heart-shuddery, nerve-jumpy, world-endy.

“Babe! I- oh there you guys are.” Kevin pops into the kitchen area and smiles beatifically at his friends and boyfriend. “Wow, you both look so nice!” he gushes. He smacks a tipsy kiss to Jacob’s cheek loudly, entirely unabashed while Jaehyun and Juyeon chorus greetings back.

Juyeon makes eye contact with him and Jaehyun waves his hand to indicate they should drink. They both tip the shot glasses back, Juyeon with his face averted and Jaehyun watching - constantly, always watching him, the line of his neck and the bob of his Adam’s apple - as he, too, swallows the rice wine.

“Juyeonie, did Jake tell you our friend was coming?” Kevin waggles his eyebrows suggestively at Juyeon, who only stares back confusedly.

“Huh?”

“Oh,” Kevin frowns. “Our friend- you know, the guy from New Zealand? The foreign teacher at our school who’s always asking about you?”

Juyeon goes bright red even as Jaehyun feels something trip in his chest. He sees it in slow motion, almost, the inadvertent yet tentative flickering of Juyeon’s eyes to his and the odd look of guilt that crosses Juyeon’s handsome face.

“Uh,” Juyeon stutters, but Kevin barrels on, unaware.

“I thought you dressed up for him,” he says with a small shrug. “No stress, you can still meet him — he’s over by the TV. The one with the insanely broad shoulders,” Kevin says suggestively.

Jaehyun’s heard the phrase ‘a roaring in one’s ears’ before. He knows it's usually used to denote - how upsetting that living with Juyeon means he now uses words like _denote_ \- the sensation one gets when something suddenly awful happens. It’s funny, then, that what happens in his ears isn’t quite a roaring, nor a ringing nor a pounding nor a pulsing. It’s merely — silence.

Like someone had shoved thick fleece deep into his ear canals.

When Juyeon glances at him guiltily again, like he thinks he _owes_ Jaehyun something, suddenly the soju that had been sitting warmly in his gut makes him feel ill.

“You should meet him.”

Jaehyun blinks, and wonders who had spoken.

It takes all of their eyes - Jacob and Kevin’s amused, Juyeon’s strange, somehow heavy and blank all at once - on him for Jaehyun to realise it was his own voice. He clears his throat.

“You should meet him,” he says again, clearer this time, without the thick lump in his throat. “Might be nice.”

Jacob nudges Juyeon with his toe. “See? Roommate approved. You totally should.”

Juyeon nods slowly, like he’s emerging from a long sleep. “Right. Roommate approved. Right.”

Jaehyun turns, faux cheery to Kevin. “Come to think of it, you know what? Set me up too, anyone fun or pretty. Or, they don’t even have to be! Whatever, man! I might as well have some fun, right? How does it go? You only live once? I think so!”

He’s vaguely aware that he’s babbling, sounding more than a little maniacal, but Kevin and Jacob gamely agree to introduce him to some of their female friends. He lets himself get swept up in their warm embrace back out into the living room, hardly turning once when Juyeon says he’ll _stay just a second, gotta put the soju away_.

Jaehyun wonders if Kevin and Jacob’s hands are just unnaturally hot on the nape of his neck, or if the idiom _to feel the heat of someone’s gaze_ is perhaps less idiomatic than it is real.

* * *

It’s unfortunate, Jaehyun thinks, that he doesn’t seem to have the capacity to be more interesting. Han Minseo has a perfect, ski-slope nose, a charming freckle by her upper lip and hooded expressive eyes, but Jaehyun has to fight to keep his mind from drifting.

“You know we don’t _have_ to talk, right?” she asks suddenly, gaze dancing with amusement. “Are you being held at gunpoint? Twitch your left eye twice if you are.”

Fuck. And she’s nice and funny, too, and Jaehyun is _such_ an asshole. He says as much, too.

“I’m sorry, I swear I’m not this much of an asshole normally,” he says dolefully. “I think- I dunno, maybe I just had too much to drink or something.”

Minseo eyes his still full glass dubiously. “Sure,” she says easily. “Too much to drink. Seriously, don’t worry about it, it was really nice meeting you Jaehyun-ssi.” She smiles like she means it, and she has a slightly crooked front tooth that Jaehyun would find charming if his brain wasn’t churning with dark and impenetrable thoughts as it is. He shakes himself.

“No, really, I want to talk, I’m sorry. Let’s start again? Tell me how your week’s been,” he says, aiming for a pleasant smile that he hopes doesn’t fall flat.

Minseo shrugs and tips her beer back. After a swallow or two, she says, “It was pretty good actually, I started a new job a couple months ago. I used to teach with Kevin and Jacob - P.E. and biology for the upper level students - but I just switched jobs this summer to a research lab. I’m only a lab technician, but my team is doing really cool stuff in the field of marine life preservation.”

Jaehyun’s eyes light up in spite of himself. “That’s so cool, Juyeonie’s obsessed—” he stops abruptly and chokes on his spit. Seeing Minseo’s bewildered gaze, he hurries to finish his sentence. “Juyeon, my roommate, he’s really interested in all of that,” he finishes subduedly.

“Yeah?” Minseo asks, leaning against the wall with a languid sort of grace. “I always wonder how much people who don’t study this stuff actually know or care about the ocean.”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Oh, no, he’s all about ocean conservation — had a near meltdown a few weeks ago about some porpoises. Vaquitas? Something like that.”

Minseo gasps excitedly and grabs Jaehyun by the elbow. “No way, me too! Seriously, they’re so cute and they need so much help — how hasn’t social media gotten on this issue yet?”

Jaehyun chuckles, finally loosening up in the face of Minseo’s comfortable charm. “No idea, you should rant to Juyeonie about it. He’ll probably go all starstruck and ask you a million questions.” He stands up straighter and peers over the crowd of heads. “Actually he should be around here somewhere…”

His eyes sweep over the mass of people, some dancing casually to the soft music Kevin has playing from speakers, others chatting boisterously over increasingly sloppy drinks. Jaehyun can’t see that familiar head of red hair anywhere, not by the kitchen, nor the balcony where Sangyeon is talking to a clearly wasted Chanhee among others, nor the hallway.

It’s not until Jaehyun glances carelessly over to the doorway that he sees him.

Or, more accurately, _doesn’t_ see Juyeon, what with the way the man he’s talking to is leaning over him and whispering playfully in his ear. Jaehyun can hardly see Juyeon’s face, only the delicate upwards curl of his mouth and the soju-induced colour that seeps up his neck and onto his cheekbones.

They must’ve moved from the TV to the doorway at some point, Jaehyun notes absently.

From across the room, he watches as Juyeon throws his head back to laugh, unabashed as he always is. He can’t hear it, not under the din of the music, but Jaehyun knows the sound of that laughter like it’s been genetically programmed into him — a burst at first, not quite loud as it is open, each _ha!_ like a stamp in the air until it peters out to something that feels like mist over mountain rivers.

The fleece is back in his ears again, thicker this time. Jaehyun can see Minseo’s mouth moving, but he can hardly make out the sound of her voice. Not like he can with the sound of Juyeon’s laughter.

“I’m sorry- sorry, I’ll be right back, hold- excuse me for just one moment,” he mutters hurriedly. He doesn’t wait to see if she says okay, only tears himself away from the wall and stumbles haphazardly towards the bathroom.

It’s thankfully unlocked, and Jaehyun veritably throws himself in, grateful for the reprieve from body heat and sweat and sound.

He scrubs across his face roughly — a reflex reaction. It’s only when he’s pulled his hand away and sees it smudged with something cranberry coloured and glossy that he realises he’s smudged his makeup.

With intense trepidation, Jaehyun looks up at himself into the mirror.

“ _Fuck!_ ” His breathing is ragged as he stares, wild-eyed, at the ugly streak of lipstick on his face. “Fuck.”

 _What had he been thinking anyway?_ The voice in his head isn’t the giddy, childish one from a bathroom that seems like lifetimes ago. This one is callous and gruff. It sounds strangely like Jaehyun himself, or perhaps like his father and his father’s four brothers. _Ridiculous idea, wearing makeup like a little girl, and all for what? Idiotic._

Jaehyun backs away from the mirror and stumbles until his back hits a wall.

The bathmat is blue, he notes dimly as he slumps down onto the floor by the shower. His mind is full of white noise and little much else. The toothbrush holder is red, and there are two in there — one pink and one yellow. Jaehyun wonders which one is Kevin’s and which one is Jacob’s.

It’s a sharp contrast, the hollowness he feels right now sitting on a slightly damp foot rug compared to the almost unbearable saturation of sound and thoughts and _sensation_ he had felt earlier.

Jaehyun remembers how, when they were children, Jiwoo used to save the peaches his grandparents would bring from their garden every summer, refusing to eat them for weeks on end. It was a particular brand of reluctance, the kind that came with not wanting to ruin the magic of something good by allowing oneself access to it too soon.

One summer, she had been so obstinate about saving them that the two of them woke up one sticky morning and walked into the kitchen to find that the peaches had shrivelled up. Only the day before had they been so ripe that should anything have pricked their delicately velvet skin, all of the golden syrup would have burst forth in unceasing rivulets, but by the next — they had had gone wrinkled and dark. Completely empty inside.

Jiwoo had been despondent but there was nothing to be done.

Jaehyun feels like that peach now. On the brink of overflowing, brimming and pulled so taut he thought everything might spill out if he was pricked the wrong way and then, in the blink of an eye — hollow, with nothing to be done about it all.

A knock breaks him out of his reverie.

“Jaehyun hyung? You in there?”

Chanhee’s voice is blurred with drink, but it’s clear enough through the crack of the bathroom door. Jaehyun contemplates briefly not saying anything, but the knock comes again.

“Just so you know, I saw you come in, so I was really asking as a formality,” Chanhee informs him, not unkindly. “You don’t have to let me in, but just give me a sign that you’re okay. Do you need some water?”

Jaehyun stays silent.

“Some rice? Carbs soak up alcohol, apparently.”

“Gatorade?” Chanhee asks a moment later. Jaehyun grits his teeth.

“No? Some jjajangmyeon? Chicken. Melona popsicle?”

“Oh my god,” Jaehyun exclaims as he jumps up to pull the door open. “Do you ever run out of battery?”

“No,” Chanhee says smugly as he wriggles his way in. “Greater men than you have tried to defeat me, hyung, and to no avail.”

“Shut up,” Jaehyun grumbles, so thoroughly irritated by Chanhee that he momentarily forgets the massacre that is the lipstick on his face. It’s not until Chanhee’s eyes go soft and delicate and a plaintive _“oh”_ leaves his lips does Jaehyun remember. The sight of pity in Chanhee’s round eyes makes him want to curl up in shame.

“Yeah, it’s- I accidentally scrubbed at it,” Jaehyun mutters, averting his eyes just so he doesn’t have to see what’s written so plainly on Chanhee’s face. “It’s fine, it looked dumb anyway, I’m gonna just—”

His wrist is caught mid-air, already halfway to his mouth to wipe away the remnants of jammy stain.

“Don’t,” Chanhee says, a frown marring his brow. “I bet it looked really good, here, just let me—”

His eyes are questioning and open, like Jaehyun has the choice to say no when he brings his thumb up to Jaehyun’s lips. It’s rather ridiculous, Jaehyun is sure, to feel like an animal caught under the gaze of a predator when really he’s only standing in front of his friend who wants to help, but he nods anyway — wooden and uncertain.

Chanhee’s thumb grazing the space between his chin and bottom lip is gentle but firm, wiping away once before he switches to his forefinger and then his third. After he reaches his ring finger, Chanhee gently pushes Jaehyun to lean against the sink before wetting a small square of toilet paper to clean the edges of Jaehyun’s lips up further.

All the time, Jaehyun stares at him, wide-eyed, as his heart thumps uncomfortably in his chest. He feels open, somehow, exposed in the most awful way possible. This is uncharted territory, ships sailing into open seas without maps, and Jaehyun _hates_ the way his eyes track Chanhee's every movement like he doesn’t even trust his own fucking friend.

“There,” Chanhee says finally. “Good as new.”

He turns Jaehyun to face the mirror, and indeed, Chanhee hadn’t lied. His lipstick, once a rather unseemly mess on his face, now looks almost perfect. Chanhee had cleverly blotted the colour so that instead of the soft bloom towards the edges that Juyeon had painted hours earlier, now, Jaehyun’s lips are covered in an even layer of raspberry shine.

Chanhee smiles softly at him in the reflection. It’s both exactly like the way Juyeon had smiled at him in their own bathroom back in Sinchon, and entire worlds apart — perhaps the worst part of it all, the worst part of being found by Chanhee hiding away like a child in Kevin and Jacob’s bathroom, is the fact that Jaehyun is brazenly confronted with how different it feels to have a friend touch your face with careful eyes, and how it feels to have _Juyeon_ do it.

If Chanhee’s cool fingertips on his mouth had felt like sleepy afternoons with friends on a picnic blanket, Juyeon’s calloused graze was the exhilarating heartbeat of a club packed to the brim, heavy bass and lips so close to one another that your breath was never your own.

Jaehyun stares at himself in the reflection. Good as new. There’s a slight pinkness at his chin, either from the stain of makeup or from Chanhee rubbing at his skin. Either way, Jaehyun thinks, good as new is a stretch.

Good enough, more like.

“Are you okay?” Chanhee asks quietly. “Did something happen with J—”

“I’m fine,” Jaehyun says quickly. “I just drank too much. Sorry. I’m embarrassed, could you not tell anyone that you found me here?”

Chanhee jolts a little in surprise, eyes searching as he processes Jaehyun’s rushed words. Whether he finds what he's looking for in Jaehyun’s expression is hard to tell, but he nods with a pursed mouth anyway.

“Okay, yeah, sure,” he murmurs. “Do you want to go back out? Or I can come down with you to hail a taxi if you wanna go home.”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Back out. Let’s go back out.”

Chanhee seems like he wants to ask if Jaehyun is sure, but after a moment, he merely nods and reaches behind Jaehyun to grab the door handle.

The bathroom walls must be inordinately thick, Jaehyun thinks, as he steps out. The sudden thrum of music and voices, far louder than he had remembered them being, make his eardrums ache, but he fights down the urge to wince.

“Go, I’ll catch up,” he says to Chanhee. “I’m gonna go look for—” He doesn’t finish his sentence. Who _is_ he going to look for?

Chanhee nods, then pauses as if unsure, before kissing him quickly on the head. It catches Jaehyun off guard, the small, friendly press of Chanhee’s lips on his temple, but he smiles anyway at his friend’s retreating back.

Jaehyun looks out into Kevin and Jacob’s packed full flat. Between the layers of shoulders and elbows, Jaehyun can just about make out Juyeon’s red hair still by the doorway. A few metres away, Minseo is casually sipping at her beer and on her phone, likely playing a game if the small crease between her eyebrows and the rapid flicking of her thumb is anything to go by.

Jaehyun remembers a conversation he’d had in Uiseong-eup, one Tuesday morning sometime in spring over breakfast. Jaehyun remembers Jiwoo, sixteen and indignant, and his parents, in their forties with drawn faces, as the four of them negotiated the then terrifying prospect of Jiwoo and Jaehyun being anything but straight. Normal. Jaehyun remembers words like _animal desires_ and _obligation_ , but the rest of it fades into the hazy pool that is adolescent memory.

Jaehyun has trouble remembering a lot of things that were said in specific, either in his childhood years or in adulthood, really, but he doesn’t have trouble remembering his father’s voice that Tuesday morning, gruff and solemn, a little agitated.

 _We all have choices in life_ , he had said. _To give in to our lower selves or to resist._

Jaehyun exhales, feels the sticky kiss of makeup on his lips part as he does so. When he opens his eyes, he finds he can’t see Juyeon anymore under the throng of partygoers.

“Excuse me,” he says quietly as he moves his way past one couple. They shift slightly to the right, and then he finds that his path forward is remarkably unbroken. Clear.

Jaehyun begins to make his way towards Minseo.

 _We all have choices in life,_ his father had said. _This is the meaning of society and obligation._

* * *

  
The studio is too hot, and Jaehyun is sweating through his thin cotton T-shirt. He’d been warned, of course, of how Man PD liked to keep the temperature on their floor - because _naturally_ he knows the owner of the building well enough to regulate the thermostat of a whole floor - practically tropical in the winter. The knowledge that he’d been forewarned doesn’t assuage any of the growing irritation that builds under his skin like ants swarming dry ground.

Or maybe it’s not the heat, Jaehyun fumes silently to himself. Maybe it’s not the bead of sweat that is making its leisurely way down his temple. Maybe it’s actually the fact that Sunwoo hasn’t stopped clearing his throat every few minutes for the last _forty five minutes_.

When that dry cough comes again, sharp and hacking, Jaehyun jolts up from his seat. He pulls his headphones off quickly and grits out as politely as he can, “Can I get you a lozenge?”

He feels bad immediately once the words leave his mouth, unnecessarily poisonous for a Monday morning. “Sorry,” he mutters quickly. “I know you’re sick or something, I shouldn’t have gotten annoyed.”

Instead of looking peeved or even caught off guard by Jaehyun’s waspish behaviour, Sunwoo looks a little smug. “Knew you were pissy the second you came in today, hyung,” he declares. “I was just—” he coughs again then, “Fuck, actually I think I might’ve induced a throat infection,” he grimaces. “Is that a thing? I hope not, I don’t have the time or money to go to the doctor.”

“Sunwoo, what?” Jaehyun asks impatiently.

“Alright, alright, no need to get all huffy,” Sunwoo says with wide eyes, palms up in a show of mollification. “What’s up, hyung? I was just coughing to get your attention. You came in looking like you were ready to commit arson.”

Jaehyun glares and exhales a short, tense breath. “Nothing, I’m fine. If you’re done monkeying around, I have to get back to—”

“You know I can see your screen right?”

“I have many emails to folder-ise!” Jaehyun snaps. “Did you know that a messy inbox is number three out of six of the biggest workplace time wasters? Yeah, I bet you didn’t, with your ten thousand unread emails.”

Sunwoo quirks an eyebrow at him. “Calming breaths, Jaehyun hyung, we’ll get through this,” he says. “Seriously, if you stopped snarling at me for a second and actually talked about why you’re upset, you might feel better.”

Jaehyun stares disbelievingly at Sunwoo. The audacity! When he has all those emails — he looks back at his screen to verify the sheer workload he has waiting for him and—

Inbox: 35 total, 1 unread.

It’s a little sad, then, how quickly Jaehyun’s brashness deflates. God, how pathetic. Not even anger keeps him going.

“Sorry,” he grunts tiredly into his hands. “Rough weekend. I’ll stop being a dick.”

Sunwoo touches his shoulder gently, fingers grazing up the thin material of Jaehyun’s shirt to squeeze him lightly. “Wanna talk about it?”

Jaehyun’s eyes flick upwards to meet Sunwoo’s open gaze. He doesn’t really want to - not insofar as he understands the word and the emotion of _want_ anyway - but there’s an urge to, like the words are suddenly tumbling up his throat and piling up against his teeth with their urgency to be heard.

“Have you- do you ever wonder what the right thing to do is? Between two things?” Jaehyun asks. He frowns then tries again. “Sorry, I meant, like, when you’re faced with two options, how do you know which to pick?”

Sunwoo looks thoughtful for a moment, spinning a tiny bit left and then right in his chair. “I don’t…I don’t know. I always go with my gut, I guess. What’s your gut telling you?”

Jaehyun startles. “Who, me? No, I- this is hypothetical! A general life…wonderment.”

Sunwoo throws him a skeptical look before pulling his knees up to his chest. Jaehyun notes that his shoes aren’t exactly clean, but Sunwoo seems to have no qualms about their dirty soles touching his chair.

“Uh huh. Hypothetical,” he repeats dubiously. “I mean, I think it’s a question of what makes you happy, y’know? Which choice brings you the most joy?”

Jaehyun chews on the inside of his cheek and feels a fresh wound open up inside of him. What does it mean, _what makes you happy?_ People talk about it all the time in Seoul, Jaehyun finds, this new-fangled obsession with joy that he suspects comes from a petite woman in Japan and her life changing magic of tidying, but Jaehyun doesn’t understand it all.

Isn't joy ephemeral? Temporary? When had joy supplanted the age-old cornerstones of good living — duty and responsibility and dedication?

The thing is, Jaehyun knows what makes him happy. He’d be stupid not to know, to be wholly unaware of the fact that joy comes in the dust motes dancing across sun-splashed windows that Juyeon so loves to talk about, that happiness is the sound bite of laughter that Jaehyun sometimes wakes up to when the world looks very grim and scary outside.

But where has joy ever gotten anyone?

“I don’t know what brings me the most joy,” he says instead, because ignorance is an easier thing to admit than the alternative. “How do you know what makes you happy?”

Sunwoo’s eyebrows raise, and his eyes traverse the room as he formulates an answer. Finally he says, “I guess it’s different for everyone. Joy is something I know, like, an intrinsic feeling or truth that no one can take away from me.”

Jaehyun rolls his shoulders back, feeling dejected and tired all at once, when Sunwoo adds, in a question, “Aren’t there things that you know in your gut? Indivisible truths or whatever?”

Jaehyun looks up. Stares.

Indivisible truths? That- that’s easier than joy. He _has_ those.

“Yeah. Wait. Is that- you just go with that? Stuff you know?”

Sunwoo frowns. “I mean, not in a way where I don’t try new things. I just meant there are things that I have no doubts about that are right for me, that—”

“Yeah, yeah!” Jaehyun exclaims, his entire being brightening with brilliant force. “Yeah, right, _god_ that makes sense. You’re right — go with the gut! With the stuff you know!”

Sunwoo blinks confusedly, but nods along anyway.

See, because this makes sense! It does! Jaehyun _knows_ things — he knows _hyodo_ , he knows his family, he knows about the steady drumbeat of his ceaseless desire to make his parents proud, to give them comfortable lives. Sunwoo had made it so simple — _of course_ he had! They were the same, he and Sunwoo, both boys from Uiseong-eup who understand the same truths that seem to be so alien in Seoul.

“Fuck, thanks Sunwoo-ya,” Jaehyun says with a marvelling shake of his head. “You’re so right. Fuck. I just have to trust myself, right?”

Sunwoo brightens too, at this, and he nods with a little more significance. “Right! Trust yourself. Trust yourself to know what brings you joy.”

“Yeah, yeah, right, joy,” Jaehyun says distractedly. It’s so clear, now, under the bright studio lights and not in the smoky liminal space of an alcohol-fuelled party; how silly it had been of him to question, even for a moment, what he knew in his soul. Jaehyun doesn’t need joy or flimsy promises of it. He needs the very driving force that has been there, pushing him, from day one — becoming someone his parents can be proud of.

What a simple truth it is.  
  


* * *

  
The only thing is, truths are all good and well when you’re in Man PD’s studio on a Monday morning, separate from everything else except the music pouring through your headphones and the slightly blue-tinged glow from your computer screen.

They’re not so good and well when you’re pushing the door open to your flat, hoping against hope that the living room is empty only to find Juyeon there, glumly pushing his noodles back and forth in his bowl.

When Jaehyun walks in and cautiously deposits his keys onto the small table by the door, Juyeon looks up with something like hope and wariness shining simultaneously bright in his eyes.

“Hyung,” he says simply in greeting. “Have you…had a good day?”

Jaehyun hates this. He hates the viscous discomfort in the air, and the fact that he and Juyeon have barely talked let alone been in the same room since Friday night at Kevin and Jacob’s. It’s his fault too, too submerged in his own head at the time to realise how unfair it is that he’s been giving Juyeon the cold shoulder the entire weekend.

Now, as he stands in front of his roommate and friend, whose face is drawn and golden complexion an ashy colour, Jaehyun feels the full weight of his bad behaviour.

“I did, yeah,” he says quietly. He sheds his thick winter coat - December in Seoul is far colder than it was in Uiseong - and slowly approaches the sofa where Juyeon is sitting with his eyes downcast. “Hey,” he says. Juyeon doesn’t look up. “Hey, Juyeon-ah. Can we talk?”

Juyeon looks up and blinks, a hurt, shuttered thing, but nods anyway. He shifts over on the sofa cushions to make room for Jaehyun — like he’d remembered that Jaehyun prefers the side with an armrest to the middle. It makes him feel ten times worse.

“I- Juyeonie, hyung should apologise,” Jaehyun says awkwardly. “I shouldn’t- I was going through some stuff this weekend and I avoided you, and that was immature, so I’m sorry.”

Juyeon stares back at him wordlessly for a moment before he mechanically reaches for his food and takes a bite. When he swallows, he sighs. “Okay. I- ugh, maybe I should apologise too. I clearly made you uncomfortable last weekend, what with the pressuring you to wear makeup and that whole thing in the bathr—”

“No, no!” Jaehyun cuts in hurriedly. The loud, important part of his brain is appalled at the notion that Juyeon might feel like he has to apologise at all, but the small, secret part of it whispers, _what don’t you want to hear, Jaehyun-ah?_ “You didn’t, you didn’t pressure me into wearing makeup and after that- everything was fine. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have- it was all me, Juyeonie, really.”

Juyeon looks at him disbelievingly.

“Really!” Jaehyun reaffirms. “I was just- I was trying to sort through things with my career, and life and expectations and- and yeah. I didn’t know how to talk about it so I shut down, kinda. It wasn’t about you.”

Living in Seoul has been a whirlwind of firsts. First time living away from home, first time meeting foreigners, first time ordering food to his apartment at 2AM. Jaehyun adds another first to his running mental list — first time lying, again and again, to a friend. His gut clenches with shame.

Juyeon sighs long and hard before putting his food down. He looks frustrated as he runs his hand through his hair, and part of Jaehyun wants to press his thumb down on the crease between his eyebrows just to take it away.

“Okay. Okay. You- the thing is, hyung, I _get_ that. I get needing time alone, and I want you to know you don’t ever have to tell me things or feel like you can’t process stuff on your own, but seriously, you can’t just- just, ice me out like that!” he cries vexedly. “It’s not okay, it upsets me a lot and you- you just _can’t_. Tell me you want to be alone, tell me you’re not ready to talk about it now or ever, all of that’s fine. Just let me _know_ so I’m not sitting here freaking out.”

Juyeon sounds a little broken before he takes a heaving breath. His Adam’s apple bobs jerkily down the column of his neck. “You- I hate it when you give me the cold shoulder,” he finishes agitatedly. “You did it over Chuseok, and you did it again last weekend and it’s- it’s not okay to me.”

Jaehyun’s hand jerks upwards, an involuntarily twitch towards holding Juyeon’s but he smothers it down and places both hands under his thighs to keep them under control. It wouldn’t be fair to Juyeon to try and lessen his hurt by mollifying him with touch, but Jaehyun wants so badly to anyway.

Instead, he says, “I’m sorry. I’m really- hyung’s really sorry, Juyeon-ah, I shouldn’t have done that.” He exhales and rubs his mouth tiredly, feeling the weight of Juyeon’s gaze on him the entire time.

“I’m not…I’m not good at talking about things that feel…sore. It always feels like avoiding it will make it hurt less,” Jaehyun admits finally. “So that’s why I’ve been cagey. And shitty. And it’s not an excuse, I’m not excusing my behaviour, I just thought you might want to know why. It’s not you or a reflection of how much I trust you, it’s just…me.”

At this, Juyeon makes a noise of surprise that has Jaehyun looking up at him once more. “But- but you’re so good with confrontation?” Juyeon says confusedly. “Like, so good that I was a little scared the first time you told me that it irritated you when I left the toilet lid open?”

Jaehyun lets out an odd little choke of laughter. “Yeah but,” he starts, then pauses because but what? He struggles for a response until it finally comes.

“But that stuff’s all, I dunno, trivial? Irritation isn’t- it’s not a hard emotion to share, y’know? And it’s solved quickly. In Uiseong, no one bats an eye when you tell them upfront why you’re annoyed, but here, everyone has this front, like nothing ever annoys them. No one tells anyone why they’ve annoyed them in Seoul, but when it comes to why they’re sad or- or disappointed, it seems so easy. And that’s the stuff that’s hard for me.”

It’s absurd, how terrifying even admitting this is — the fact that he struggles with feeling to begin with. Jaehyun can’t help but avert his eyes, entirely unable to look away from the slightly fraying edge of the rug underneath their coffee table.

“Oh,” Juyeon says.

“Yeah. Yeah.” Jaehyun picks at his lip, still studiously avoiding eye contact. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, Juyeonie, I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that. It was a really crappy thing of me to do.”

Instead of replying, Juyeon takes something out of his back pocket. Out of the corner of his eye, Jaehyun can see that it’s a little brown notebook, the kind that’s covered in a thin, slightly glossy sheet of cardboard and bound in a dark grey stitched spine. Innocuous, sort of, except for the fact that Jaehyun has seen it peeking out of every available crevice in Juyeon’s clothes — his shirts, his bags, one time even out of the waistband of his trousers.

Now, Juyeon pushes it over to him.

“Uh-?” Jaehyun stutters intelligently.

“It’s,” Juyeon coughs, and Jaehyun finally finds the mental temerity to look up, only to find that Juyeon’s ears are turning a little red. “It’s my diary. Or, journal, I guess. For thoughts and feelings, and sometimes other stuff too.”

“Oh. That’s nice,” Jaehyun says, still lost.

At this, Juyeon chuckles fondly, all vestiges of upset melted away. “Go on, read it. If you want, that is.”

Jaehyun recoils, face contorted in surprise. “What? You want me to read your diary?”

Juyeon shrugs. “I trust you with it. And this one’s pretty new anyway-” so that’s why the edges of the notebook are smooth and sharp instead of slightly creased like Jaehyun had seen previously “-so it’s only a _bit_ of my messy, complicated stuff. Two seventeenths, let’s say,” Juyeon says with a hint of a smile.

Tentatively, like he thinks Juyeon will take it back or change his mind, Jaehyun thumbs the cover open.

The writing there is scrawled, coasting down the edges of pages and in higgledy-piggledy lines. Jaehyun stares surprisedly before bringing it up closer to his face to read the words written there, flipping slowly through the leaves.

When he’s done, he frowns, nonplussed.

It’s almost painfully, horridly pedestrian. On the precipice of being badly written, even, riddled with grammatical and spelling errors like Juyeon hadn’t bothered to piece the words together properly. Half-baked sentences. Aborted thoughts. All of this, and Jaehyun knows Juyeon is a good writer — he has the birthday card Juyeon had written him tacked onto his wall, charming and tender without being obsequious over cream card stock.

Jaehyun looks up and examines Juyeon’s expression.

“It’s shit,” he says.

Juyeon laughs, so hearty and handsome with his head thrown back that Jaehyun’s brain momentarily glitches at the sight.

“I know, that’s kind of the point,” Juyeon says after he’s sobered, eyes still shining with merriment. “Okay, in my defence, sometimes it’s less shit because I write stuff I want to turn into actual work one day, but yeah, for the most part, it’s total chaos. Just like our feelings.”

Jaehyun narrows his eyes and sets the notebook down. “What do you mean?”

Juyeon shrugs. “I mean that everyone’s feelings are messy. They don’t make sense, they’re hard to process, they’re ugly and low and underdeveloped. This is just how I like to sort through them.”

Jaehyun lifts his thumb to chew on his hangnail, rolling through Juyeon’s words in his mind. “So…you write a journal? To process? I thought- I guess I thought you were someone who talked to people.”

“Mm,” Juyeon hums slowly, leaning back on the sofa. His food’s probably frigid by now, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he finally takes another bite. “I am, I guess, for a lot of things anyway. I like talking about my feelings out loud to people I care about and who I know care about me.”

He sighs and puts his bowl down once more. “Sometimes it’s hard though, which you know I’m sure. Like, right now, I’m thinking a lot about my thesis and it’s so stressful and hard to articulate that stress that it’s easier to write my feelings down instead. Or, like, the stuff with Youngjae and my dad? I don’t really talk about that stuff. It’s- it’s too raw to talk about out loud. I’ve tried before, but the words get all blocked up and I end up needing to be comforted before I even get through all the things I needed to say.”

Jaehyun nods slowly, finger tracing the edge of the notebook paper. “Yeah. I do know,” he says in a breath outwards. “That’s how it feels, like, all the time for me with- y’know. Like all the words are piled up and if I let them out, I’ll never stop floating out there with them.”

It’s Juyeon who reaches out first this time, Juyeon who takes Jaehyun’s hand and holds it against the sofa cushions, wrist bent a little but not too much. The warm, dry pressure of his hand in Jaehyun’s is grounding somehow, tethering him to their two bedroom Sinchon flat.

“It feels like suffocating for me,” Juyeon admits quietly with a wry smile. “That’s why my therapist suggested it in the first place. Said I might find I’m the kind of person who’s compatible with writing therapy.”

Jaehyun chuckles with Juyeon - infamous, endless lover of words that he is - even as his focus snags on one word. _Therapist._

As politely as he can, he asks carefully, “Therapist?”

Juyeon looks caught off guard for a moment and his mouth forms a little ‘o’. “Oh I- wait, I’m sorry, I thought I’d mentioned it already,” he says with a shake of his head and a small chuckle. “I have a therapist I used to see weekly a couple years ago, back when I was in uni. I don’t see her anymore really, not more than the occasional check-in, but I still write like I used to when I saw her regularly.”

Jaehyun’s eyes flicker quickly over Juyeon’s face, searching for any sign of distress or- or anything. He almost feels hesitant when he sees the persistent lack of _anything_ in Juyeon’s expression, other than a serene sort of matter-of-fact look. “Are you…” he grimaces at the glib question already leaving his mouth. “Are you okay?”

The sound that comes out of Juyeon should probably be called a burst of laughter, but is perhaps closer to a snort or even a hack. “Yeah, hyung, I’m fine,” he chuckles merrily. “I had a major depressive episode at nineteen, but I’m absolutely jaunty otherwise.”

Jaehyun feels the blood drain from his face, and Juyeon snorts again. “Don’t look so terrified! I’m fine, really — it happened, I do regular check-ins with my therapist, I’m off my meds, all is well! You can unclench, I’m really okay,” he finishes gently with a soft squeeze to Jaehyun’s hand.

Jaehyun groans and rubs his hand through his hair. “Sorry was that- sorry that was uncool, right? I know- I mean, you obviously don’t think it’s- is it a big deal? No, right? Or, like, it probably was at the time but you seem very chill about it? I think? So I’m sorry for seeming doom and gloom, I—” he stutters, getting redder and redder while Juyeon looks like he might burst a vein from laughing.

“Jaehyunie hyung,” Juyeon finally interrupts, eyes so crinkled with mirth that Jaehyun wonders briefly if Juyeon’s cheeks hurt from how hard he’s grinning. “Can you stop freaking? It’s okay! Really! We can talk casually about it, it really isn’t anything to get worked up over. Relax, you’re fine — I’m fine, you’re fine, and if we’re not, my therapist is _really_ cool—”

“Juyeon-ah!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Juyeon laughs. “I’m just messing around, really. Look, the whole point I was trying to make was that I process stuff on my own too. I write in my notebook, Kevin paints, Youngjae dances. You don’t _have_ to tell anyone the things that give you pain, as long as you have a way of working through it yourself.”

Jaehyun nods and chews on the inside of his cheek. “Right. Okay. Right. That makes sense,” he mumbles. “Processing.”

“Processing,” Juyeon echoes softly, the lightest of smiles pulling at the edges of his lips. “Do you want to try the notebook thing?” he asks kindly.

Jaehyun thinks then makes a face. “I don’t know, Juyeon,” he says slowly. “I’m not good with words. They make me feel all- all tangled up inside.”

Juyeon nods as he mulls it over, hand finally releasing Jaehyun’s to take another bite of noodles. “What about music? You used to write music when you were in high school, right? And they have pianos and all sorts at the studio — maybe you could try that?”

Something nervous and stuttering opens its leaves in Jaehyun’s chest, the unfurling of a bud he’d thought had died with the onset of autumn suddenly announcing its bloom. He hasn’t thought about writing music in a while, not since he’d folded that dream neatly like a once-loved garment and put it away in some forgotten corner of a closet in his chest. It’s dusty now, a little too small and stiff from lack of wear, but warm somehow like it had been waiting and alive all this time.

He hadn’t wanted to entertain the dream, not when Sunwoo had suggested it nor when Chanhee had too. Something about the way Juyeon had phrased it, like a question, like writing music was for Jaehyun instead of the other way around in this life, makes it seem less like a leap of faith and more like stepping into an April shower puddle.

But Juyeon’s always had some power like that, hasn’t he?

“Yeah,” Jaehyun whispers. “Maybe I could.”

Juyeon smiles like a first bloom.

“Hey,” Jaehyun says suddenly. “Are we- are we okay?”

Entire orchards seem to blossom over Juyeon’s face then, carnations on his cheeks, violets in his eyes, roses on his mouth. Brilliant and handsome all at once.

“Yeah, hyung,” he murmurs, squeezing Jaehyun’s hand in his. “We’re okay.”

* * *

Jaehyun would say that, as a whole, living in Seoul has done wonders for him in terms of his breadth of knowledge about the outside world. However, standing here among the aisles of imported beers at Jacob’s local supermarket, he find that his alcohol knowledge is still sadly lacking.

He’s only just gotten hooked onto flavoured soju, let alone mastered navigating the rows and rows of lagers, ales, and whatever the fuck stouts are. Jaehyun is in the middle of frowning down at a six pack of porters when a voice pipes up near his shoulder.

“Need some help?”

He looks up, grateful smile already on his face when he and the person’s eyes widen simultaneously.

“Oh!” Han Minseo’s lips form a perfect pink ‘o’. “Sorry, I didn’t realise it was you, hi!”

See, the thing is, the whole other reason Jaehyun had been avoiding Juyeon all of last weekend is because of the part in the narrative he had left purposefully out, to Juyeon, to Sunwoo, even to himself. The part where he and Han Minseo taxied to her place, both of them tipsy but not drunk enough to claim diminished responsibility by way of intoxication, and hooked up.

Jaehyun doesn’t feel _bad_ per se, standing in front of Minseo right now — he hadn’t called her, but she hadn’t offered him her number, and the hook up had been fine. Cordial, like all of Jaehyun’s other hookups.

So he says ‘hey’ with a smile that he means, because Minseo had been nothing but nice and charming and funny, even when Jaehyun hadn’t been hard when she’d taken off her clothes and they’d been kissing on her bed for a while. She’d made a humorous joke about whiskey dick and female arousal, and Jaehyun had laughed even though he was still mortified.

“How are you?” he asks, setting the porter down. “What’re you doing in this area?”

“Ah, I had to drop some of my old teaching resources off at Jacob’s — I think he’s doing the health unit soon in school, but I used to teach the girls’ section so he wanted to get some of my old lesson plans.”

“Oh, that’s funny, I’m actually headed to his right now,” he says, glancing back at the aisle of beers. ‘S’why I’m standing here, struggling, like an idiot.”

Minseo laughs pleasantly at his self-deprecating joke, the slightly crooked tooth Jaehyun hadn’t found time to find charming that night showing once more. Pretty girl, and still, Jaehyun feels something close to nothing.

“Want help?” she asks. “I know what Jacob and Kevin always bring when we used to get together with the other teachers.”

Jaehyun nods gratefully and lets her direct him to a couple of different options. He ends up picking a pale ale to bring, and willingly waits for her while she grabs a bottle of wine for herself and her roommate. They chat casually at the cashier, a kind of easy repartee between them that is pleasant enough to have Jaehyun willing to sustain the conversation but not so engaging that he feels the need to stay in touch.

It’s only when they’ve both walked out of the supermarket that Minseo turns to him and touches his shoulder. “Hey,” she says haltingly. Jaehyun stops, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Uh, this is- this is gonna sound weird but it’s been on my mind since we- y’know, so just—”

She takes a fortifying breath, and Jaehyun grows nervous as she does so, mind darting to a hundred and one different awkward questions she might ask him. Had he done something shitty that night? His blood runs cold at the thought.

“Ugh, okay, I’m just gonna say it — did you- you weren’t, like, inebriated that night were you?” she asks, a pained expression on her face. “I mean, I know I asked then and you said you weren’t that drunk, but- I just, I can’t get help but get the feeling that you didn’t really want to hook up, and I’ve been freaking out these past couple weeks wondering if you’d- I dunno, felt pressured to or something—”

Her rambling comes to a halt when Jaehyun lets out a huff of incredulous laughter. “Are you- do you think you took advantage of me?” he asks. “Noona, you didn’t at all, I swear. I wanted to- y’know.”

Minseo’s troubled expression clears and she heaves a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god. Fuck.” She laughs, brushing a couple strands of hair out of her face, hands graceful as her dark hair floats prettily in the winter wind. “Good, I was really worried.”

Jaehyun smiles warmly and shakes his head. “No need, really,” he says. “And anyway, why? I had a nice time hanging out with you.”

He’s not lying, not really when he _did_ have a nice time talking to Minseo. She was charming and witty, and if Jaehyun preferred the bit where they were talking and cuddling after more than anything that had happened in between, that doesn’t make him a liar. He _had_ enjoyed himself, hadn’t he?

Minseo’s lip quirks and her brows do a curious twitchy thing. “Oh,” she says, sounding bemused and a little wry. “No, no reason,” she says. “It’s- is this awkward to talk about on a Saturday afternoon?”

Jaehyun huffs out a laugh and shrugs. Minseo chuckles dryly too, but goes on, “It’s only that I kind of got the feeling you were thinking about someone else.” At Jaehyun’s look of surprise, she adds quickly, “But hey, I’m a dumbass, like, ninety percent of my waking life, so what do I know.”

Jaehyun blusters over his confusion by saying quickly, “You’re not a dumbass, noona.”

This makes Minseo coo, and she reaches forward to squeeze his arm. “Cute,” she says fondly. “Such a sweet boy from Uiseong-gun,” she teases, darting out of the way when Jaehyun fakes a swat at her. “Okay, I should head out, I have a standing wine date with my roommate.”

She doesn’t ask for Jaehyun’s contact, and he doesn’t offer it. “Have a good day, Lee Jaehyun from Uiseong-gun,” she says with a jaunty touch of two fingers to her temple.

“Have a good day, Han Minseo from...” Jaehyun trails off, realising he doesn’t remember where she’d said she was from.

“Knew your mind was elsewhere,” Minseo scolds, already a number of paces away. “See you around, stay warm!”

And with that, she’s gone, as willowy and lovely as the trees lining the street that seem to sway in the wind.

Jaehyun stares after her for a while, contemplating and feeling the crest of something scary in his chest. Distracted? Had he been?

He had tried to blot out that night in his memory, some misplaced sense of guilt, perhaps, for it being the reason he hadn’t talked to Juyeon for over forty eight hours. But really, and there’s no _perhaps_ involved here, it’s because —

How is one supposed to hold onto a memory when one had felt nothing? When he thinks of that night, really truly thinks of it, Jaehyun remembers the way Minseo had trailed her pretty lips down his neck, and Jaehyun had felt nothing. He remembers the way she had unzipped his jeans and ghosted her almond-shaped nails along the waistband of his underwear and the outline of his body, and he had felt nothing.

He remembers how he had touched her, because that’s what nice boys do — they pay attention to what their partner likes and their partner’s enjoyment, only Jaehyun’s mind had been anywhere but there as he sank his fingers between her legs, and when she’d finished and gotten up to return the favour, still, he had felt nothing.

It had taken her asking worriedly, “Do you- you know we don’t have to do this, right? We can just cuddle or you can go if you want, Jaehyun-ah,” for him to snap out of it. He had shaken his head, latched his lips around her neck and shucked his own briefs off himself, had squeezed his eyes shut and said, “Want to,” until her hands finally grazed his indifferent skin.

They had been thankfully calloused, her palms - something she tried to apologise for - but Jaehyun had shushed her with a gentle thumb to her mouth because if he kept his eyes shut, he could pretend that the hand on him was larger and rougher.

And then, when her hot mouth wrapped around him, he had groaned because under his eyelids were flashing lights like Seoul lit up with fireworks, and it was no longer Han Minseo, a pretty girl who was friends with his friends, sucking his cock but a nameless, faceless, person with spit-reddened lips pressed to his body.

And that was how Jaehyun had come, finally, brain working so hard that that was why his body began to perspire - not from arousal but from sheer _effort_ \- as his mind worked to simultaneously tamp down the image of Minseo and her soft curves there in real life as well as the image of someone who wasn’t there, not at all, with golden skin and hair the colour of merlot, perhaps, with hard, rigid planes instead of supple brushstroke lines — and that, that was how Jaehyun came.

He had thanked Minseo afterwards, and she had laughed incredulously and called him cute, her arm wrapping around his chest as she fell swiftly asleep, and Jaehyun had lain there, hadn’t he, as the sky turned plum and then carnation with the sun rising, and he had felt —

nothing.

Pale ale in hand and knuckles pressed against Jacob’s door, Jaehyun folds the memory up neatly and puts it into a drawer in his mind. Shuts it. Deigns not to think about it again, and finds, as he settles into conversation and video games with his friends, that forgetting the feeling of _nothing_ is harder than one might think.

* * *

  
It turns out writing music isn’t exactly like hopping back on a bicycle, as Sunwoo had so flippantly analogised when Jaehyun had told him, tentatively, one day that he was thinking about picking it up again.

Jaehyun throws another sheet of paper away, elbow coming down discordantly over the piano keyboard as he groans in frustration. Maybe he shouldn’t have woken up early to come to the studio. What good could possible come of a 6 AM alarm?

Nothing, that’s what, Jaehyun laments into the black and white wooden keys.

His mind that had felt so full of convoluted thoughts and feelings only a week earlier, chaotic to the point where Jaehyun felt like if he’d indulged them a little, loosened the rope even a little, he’d be set afloat in the never-ending darkness without a way to come back down.

Now, though, it feels strangely empty. Like all the words and emotions and fears had dried up.

 _That’s what you get for compartmentalising your whole life_ , a voice that sounds suspiciously like Jiwoo says in his head.

Jaehyun sighs again and knocks his forehead against the music rack before straightening, a fresh leaf of blank music sheet paper in hand. His pencil is hovering above the uniform lines, graphite only millimetres away from touching the paper, when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

Grateful for an excuse to delay writing absolute detritus even for a second, Jaehyun pulls it out quickly.

 _Gonna be home late tonight_ , Juyeon had texted him. _Getting dinner with my father. Woo._

Jaehyun grimaces in sympathy and texts him back — _Ugh good luck, hope it goes okay._

When he sees the little check mark of a message being delivered, he contemplates briefly putting his phone away. It’s still early, and Juyeon isn’t teaching a class till 9AM, but he knows how his roommate likes to sit in the office and get a good chunk of thesis reading done before beginning his day.

It’s to his surprise, then, when the text bubble pops up not a moment later.

 _Thanks_ , accompanied by the little emoticon of a person with a slanted mouth comes. Jaehyun can almost see it on Juyeon’s face, he realises with an affectionate start, how the distinctive curled edges of his lips manage to flatten themselves out in a youthful sort of displeasure. _At least if it sucks, I’ll have new material for poetry lol_ , comes a second later.

Jaehyun frowns, confused. _???_ he sends back.

 _Nothing quite like a father’s emotional deficit when it comes to inspiration_ , is the dry response. _There’s a John Lennon quote somewhere in here about art and pain…_

Jaehyun’s mouth quirks upwards at Juyeon’s sense of irony, how he switches between childlike joy to weathered wit in the time it takes Jaehyun to blink. And then Jaehyun really blinks, in real time, because now _there’s_ a thought. Art and pain — the age old dynamic duo.

 _Great, love it,_ Jaehyun texts back quickly. _Gotta go, wanna try write some more._

He isn’t sure what Juyeon sends back to him because he tosses his phone on top of his backpack lying in a heap on the chair by the door. Jaehyun buckles down, pencil once again in hand.

Pain. He’s had a lot of that recently, hasn’t he?

Jaehyun thinks of Uiseong-gun, of the elm trees that whisper, green and fragrant, at every kiss of wind. He thinks of the first autumn he missed there, his favourite season; of the russet and gold he won’t get to see, of the way he and his eomma would wrap up close and look at the stars while his father grilled meat outdoors. There’s pain there.

Jaehyun thinks of Uiseong, of the home that feels less and less like it, of the growing dread he feels at the base of his spine that builds and builds every time he thinks about going back and the interminable distance that seems to stretch wider every day between himself and his parents. There’s pain there.

Jaehyun thinks of the pangs of loneliness he still feels sometimes, even when he isn’t really alone in the physical sense but very much feels it in the emotional sense. It stings the most when he’s reminded that even though they all speak Korean, his satoori isn’t the only thing that stops others - even his friends, sometimes - from understanding what he’s saying. There’s pain there.

And yet, even with all of that pain - melancholy and echoey in the caverns of his mind - the touch of his fingertips on piano keys yields…nothing.

‘Nothing’ is too harsh, perhaps. The tune that ekes out is something, and at least far better than what he’d been writing earlier, but it still _feels_ like nothing. Like empty notes, minims instead of crotchets; Jaehyun smiles in spite of himself — Juyeon would like that analogy.

With his hands rested gently on the keyboard, not pressing down nor hovering, Jaehyun’s mind drifts toward Juyeon. If he were here, he’d help — or, at least try to as much as he could without getting distracted by all the things he might be able to touch and look at.

He’d ask about the DAW, Jaehyun knows that already, might fiddle with all the dials and levers if he didn’t think Jaehyun was looking, and he would definitely want to mess with the theremin that Man PD had allegedly bought on a drunken whim one night after going too hard at a noraebang. Jaehyun can see it now — the bright-eyed delight in Juyeon’s gaze as Jaehyun demonstrates - poorly - how a theremin works, how Juyeon might try it himself and make an appalling sound before distractedly spouting off some factoid about how sound travels through molecules in the air.

And then he’d finally settle down, Jaehyun thinks, might come and sit quietly by Jaehyun without being prompted to or perhaps Jaehyun would have to reel him in with a, “Juyeon-ah, come here, come listen to this,” and Juyeon would come and listen as Jaehyun showed him things like the way _this note transitions to that one_ \- he plays a couple notes in B flat minor - or _listen to this melody I wrote_ _-_ he plays one of the verses he’d composed that he hated less than the others - and—

And before Jaehyun knows it, he’s playing little slivers of music, murmurs over piano keys so separate from one another that it might not even be called that, but Jaehyun is playing and playing and playing, the notes falling, one over the other like dominoes, in six eight and into place — slow at first, slow like the pitter patter of uncertain raindrops and then faster, like a spring shower, and then almost torrential like summer thunderstorms in Uiseong, endless sheets of rain, and the music swells and swells until all that’s _really_ left in Jaehyun’s heart is _Juyeon-ah, do you like this, do you like the song I’m playing for you, hyung wrote this for you—_

His pinkie finger slams down abruptly, and the note lingers in the air, each raindrop suspended perfectly in time.

Jaehyun’s breathing is hard, painful, even, and tearing himself away from the melody hurts like a physical wound, but he does it anyway. He thinks valiantly of anything but _him_ , tries to think of Uiseong and Jiwoo at sixteen, Seoul and his parents at fifty, of dusty streets and neon-lit ones, and all of it— all of it makes him feel empty inside.

The music peters out, dried up once more.

Jaehyun huffs out a mirthless laugh as he stares at his hands that lay lifeless on the keyboard where they had been trembling only moments earlier.

“Fuck,” he curses. “Stupid, fucking—”

_Bli-bli-bling. Bli-bli-bling._

His alarm, signalling 8:15 AM - the start of the workday - rings.

Jaehyun rises from the wooden piano stool and resists the urge to slam the lid down. Gathers up his things, stuffs his phone into his jeans without giving it a second glance, and throws the door open.

“Hi.”

Jaehyun almost screams in surprise. He wrangles it down just in time, but what does slip out, however, is a strangled bark instead.

“Wha-!” he stumbles back in shock. “Oh- oh my fucking- Man PD-nim, hi, I didn’t know you were standing right next to the door.”

Jaehyun’s boss smiles mildly and leans against the doorframe. He crosses his long fingers in front of him, elegant knuckles and wrists, before saying, “I know HR has a whole thing about me not standing in wait by people’s doors when they’re on private time, but I had to stop and listen this time. Hope that’s okay.”

Jaehyun can’t quite decide if it is or it isn’t, but there’s not much he can say about it when Man Youngho cocks his head slightly.

“Your playing — you were a little rusty, but you got better. A lot better. I liked that first piece with all the rubato and glissandos but you seemed to lose steam halfway after that F-6. What happened there?”

His voice is as quiet as it always is but incisive nonetheless, blunt and to the point. Jaehyun is almost caught off guard but a small part of him has missed this, the straightforward questions of people who don’t perform the same tired theatre of subtlety.

Still, it’s awkward — the notion of having to explain to your boss that you’re in a personal crisis and can’t produce music unless thinking about one specific _thing_. One specific person. So instead, Jaehyun just shrugs uncomfortably and picks at the loose sheets in his hand that are stark and blank. “Ah, it’s- just thought I’d try something new. Didn’t work as well I guess. I’ll try again tomorrow, PD-nim.”

The weight of Man Youngho’s gaze on Jaehyun is palpable, and it rather feels like he’s being held under a surgical light and Man Youngho is leaning over him with a scalpel, ready to dissect every inch of Jaehyun’s being. “I see,” he says, and Jaehyun thinks for one scary moment he really _might_ see.

There’s a brief lull in the conversation, where Jaehyun doesn’t know what to do or say, so he looks up quickly and bows jerkily before muttering, “I should get to work, PD-nim, I’ll—”

“Music takes courage, Jaehyun-ssi,” Youngho interrupts, a little pointedly. He sighs deeply, every action and word that falls from his mouth laden with portentous meaning. “I’m well aware that platitude is a horse so beaten it might as well be carrion-” Jaehyun grimaces, even though he really should be used to Youngho’s somewhat theatrical way of speaking by now “-but it bears repeating from time to time.”

Youngho fixes him with a shrewd look, eyes dark and piercing. “Art is not about telling the world the things we’ve been denied, the things we can’t have. Art is about admitting to the world how much that denial has _crushed_ us to the core.”

The blood seems to freeze in Jaehyun’s veins, and, like someone falling, he feels entirely helpless to resist the encroaching darkness of Youngho’s hold. _This is it_ , he thinks, _the moment it’s all stripped bare_.

Except—

The sharpness fades from Man Youngho’s eyes, and his expression melts back into the more manageable level of keen perspicacity that Jaehyun is used to.

“Have a good day, Jaehyun-ssi,” Youngho says placidly with a serene bow. “There’s a coffee truck outside the building today, some idol’s group sent it for her — they serve a lovely sesame dais alongside any hot tea you order from them. You should try it if you have a moment in the day.”

And with that, he’s gone, ambling down the hallway and whistling some short verses of music that sound suspiciously like what Jaehyun had just improvised only moments before. Jaehyun can do little else except gape in his boss’ wake.

So overall, Jaehyun’s first attempt at writing music again is a solid _not the best._

* * *

It starts at the beginning of January, Jaehyun thinks, although he can’t be quite sure, not when it takes him a little while to notice it at first.

At first, it’s just Juyeon sleeping in a little more than usual. He’s been busy though, with the new semester starting and the first half of his thesis due at the end of the semester, so Jaehyun doesn’t chalk it up to anything out of the ordinary. So he has to knock on Juyeon’s door a couple times a week before he leaves for work when before it had always been Juyeon awake first with coffees ready for them both; that’s no big deal. He’s happy to do it.

Except slowly but surely, the number of times Jaehyun has to knock on his door starts increasing, until at some point, Juyeon starts mumbling from under the covers that he’s _taking the day off today, hyung, I just can’t really do it today_. And Jaehyun thinks that’s okay, too — everyone needs breaks sometimes, even as waking up to the sound of Juyeon’s humming in the morning or his large assortment of podcasts becomes waking up to a home as silent as it is cold.

Juyeon’s always awake and working when he comes home anyway, tapping away at his laptop in his bedroom or buried under a pile of books in the living room. Sure, he doesn’t say as much as he used to, doesn’t ask to listen to Jaehyun’s new and old records with him or offer to play 1v1 video games anymore, but that’s normal too, Jaehyun thinks. It’s what you do when you’re an adult and you’re busy — you focus on the things that matter.

Only then those nights get longer, and the mornings he stays in increase in number, and at some point, Jaehyun starts to wonder if it’s still okay that Juyeon is skipping all the morning classes he had been so excited to start a month ago, that he seems not to sleep at night in favour of tapping feverishly away at his laptop until the sky turns bruise coloured with dawn.

“Are you- is everything okay, Juyeonie?” he asks one night, when he’s about to sleep and Juyeon is pouring himself another cup of coffee. “You’ve been staying up late recently...”

He trails off, unsure of what to say. Juyeon looks up from his French press, dark shadows smudging the hollows of his face and smiles a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “M’fine, hyung,” he says. “Just a little stressed.”

He moves as if to disappear once more into his bedroom, a Stygian cavern of space that seems to radiate tension and helplessness, but Jaehyun reaches out before he can stop himself to grab Juyeon by the elbow.

“Wait, I—” he cuts himself off. He what? “I’m worried about you, Juyeon-ah,” he says quietly, imploringly. “You- should you call someone? Your thesis advisor? Or your- your therapist maybe?”

Juyeon blinks at him, like he’s not quite processing the words, and Jaehyun has to resist the urge to squeeze his arm out of desperation. Perhaps he does anyway, Juyeon jolts a little like he had been prompted, eyes widening. “Oh,” he intones. “Sorry, spaced out there. M’okay, hyung. Maybe this weekend after I finish another chapter.”

And then he’s gone, slipping out of Jaehyun’s grasp and back into his bedroom.

The click of the door shutting behind him is quiet. Damning.

  
* * *

It’s not until Juyeon doesn’t emerge from his room for the third day straight, after Jaehyun has grown increasingly tense and snappy at work, after Chanhee has tentatively asked him after rehearsal why Juyeon hasn’t been responding to anyone’s texts that Jaehyun finally decides to take the plunge and knock on his roommate’s door.

“Juyeon-ah?” he calls quietly, heart like a petrified rock in his ribs. Outside the window, the wind buffets against the buildings, creating a discordant whistling sound that chills Jaehyun to his bone.

No sound nor invitation comes through the narrow crack, but the thickness in the air seems to grow until Jaehyun can’t bear not to push the door open anymore. It’s an invasion of privacy, he’s sure, but the sight that greets him makes his stomach drop.

Winter has set into full swing in Seoul, the flat barely retaining a thin veneer of warmth as a result of the grey frigidity outside that seems to seep between all the crevices in the building until Jaehyun can barely get out of bed without swathing himself in four layers.

All of this, and Juyeon has the little tabletop fan that he keeps on in the summer, out. Blowing upwards at full power.

“Juyeon-!” Jaehyun’s cry is aborted as he strides forward to turn it off. Without the steady whir of its propeller, the room is deathly quiet, adding to the empty darkness from the drawn curtains. It may be a bright and brisk morning outside, but in this room, Jaehyun feels the full weight of winter.

From underneath his thick blanket, Juyeon’s eyes, which had been squeezed closed, flicker open to look at Jaehyun. His gaze, normally so clear and full of life that it renders Jaehyun breathless sometimes is dull and unfocused.

“‘lo, hyung,” he croaks, throat sounding ragged from misuse.

Jaehyun sinks to his knees by the bed, one trembling hand reaching out as if to touch Juyeon. At the last moment, he pulls it back, unsure if Juyeon even wants him here in this room, let alone to be touched right now.

“Juyeonie, can- are you sick? What’s happening?” he asks instead, eyes darting frantically over Juyeon’s prone form.

Under the blanket, Juyeon blinks. His hair is mussed and greasy against his handsome face, and all of his limbs are tucked under the duvet so that Jaehyun can barely make out the shape of his body.

“Not sick.”

Jaehyun exhales shakily, relief flooding him. “Oh, oh good—”

“Fan,” he says softly. “Please turn the fan on.”

The relief turns cold in his veins. “But—”

“M’not cold. Just don’t like the quiet,” Juyeon says. “Fan, please.”

Jaehyun looks around the room helplessly for a moment before spotting a stray sweatshirt hanging on the back of Juyeon’s door. He glances at it, then asks gently, “Okay, I’ll turn it on, but can I put something on top of it? Your room’s freezing, Juyeon-ah.”

Juyeon shrugs, closing his eyes once more, and Jaehyun scrambles up quickly to grab the sweatshirt. With the fan suitably covered, he turns it on once more on the third, most powerful setting. And then, with his blood pounding in his ears, Jaehyun says softly, “I’m going to be right back okay, Juyeonie? Can I get you anything?”

Juyeon shakes his head a fraction, but otherwise doesn’t respond, so Jaehyun backs quickly out of the bedroom and shuts the door behind him, phone already in hand.

The dial tone rings a couple times, Jaehyun’s own face staring back at him as he waits for Youngjae to pick up. His eyes look drawn and he’s startlingly pale, even for his normally creamy complexion, but it’s hard to focus on that right now.

Instead, when the connection screen finally pops up, he exhales a quick gust of air.

“Youngjae-yah,” he greets hurriedly. Youngjae’s smile, pleasant and sun-bronzed, drops the moment he hears the tone of Jaehyun’s voice.

“What, what is it? Is everything okay?” he asks hurriedly.

Jaehyun walks quickly to his own room and shuts the door. “I don’t know,” he says, voice quavering and unsteady when he sinks to the floor. “I don’t- I thought he was okay, just stressed or something and- but he’s in his room- the fan, in this weather! And when I—”

“Hyung, hyung, you're not making any sense,” Youngjae interrupts agitatedly. “What’s going on?”

Jaehyun takes a fortifying breath and releases it, fighting the prickling he feels in his eyes.

“I- I think something’s happened to Juyeon,” he whispers tremulously. “He hasn’t gotten out of bed in three days and- and he’s got the fan on in the room because he said he hates the quiet even though it’s freezing here, and I don’t- I have no idea what the fuck to do.”

“Oh,” Youngjae breathes, his face growing grave and tired. “Oh. He’s- it sounds like a Blue Period.”

“What’s that?” Jaehyun asks, heart suddenly still in his ribcage.

“It’s what hyungie calls his…episodes,” Youngjae explains, a ghost of melancholy smile on his face. “I think he was scared to tell me what it really was when it first happened ‘cause I was so young, and he- well, you know him. Art fanatic. So he said he was Picasso going through his Blue Period, and the name stuck.”

Jaehyun releases the breath he was holding. “Oh.” He chokes out another breath. “Right.”

“Look, the important thing is to remind him to breathe right now — 4-7-8, he’ll know what it means,” Youngjae says, combing a hand anxiously through his hair. “I’ll send you his therapist’s number, but don’t _make_ him call her. Just ask him what he needs and listen to him when he tells you. Talking helps, I think, and it’ll help him come out of…” Youngjae waves his hand meaningfully. “Enough for him to remember he should call her. If he doesn’t, you can ask if he wants to. Yeah.”

Jaehyun nods quickly, mentally itemising the things that Youngjae mentioned. “Okay,” he says, trying to sound confident and certain, but it comes out miserable and scared instead. “Okay. Fuck, I’m sorry I called you — are you about to go to bed? Fuck, sorry Youngjae-yah.”

Youngjae quickly shakes his head. “No, please, it’s good that you called, thank you,” he says. “I’ll call hyungie your tomorrow morning, I don’t want to overwhelm him, but text me any time, okay?”

Jaehyun makes an affirmative sound and stands. “Yeah, will do. I’m gonna go make him some tea — does he like tea? During his- times like this? Or is that totally unhelpful,” he rambles, feeling the static-crackle of stress dial up once more, filling his ears and nerves until he feels like his entire body is one large coil of live wire.

“Tea is good, not a big deal if he doesn’t feel like it,” Youngjae says with a soft, encouraging smile. “I’m really glad you’re there, hyung. I know it’s- I know you’ve never done this before, but I’m really glad you’re there and- yeah.”

Jaehyun nods, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he sets about making a small sachet of green tea.

“I’m gonna go, okay, but text me if anything comes up,” Youngjae says with another encouraging smile. “Let me know how it goes.”

Distractedly, Jaehyun says goodbye to Youngjae, his entire focus having been directed to the mug in front of him and the person hurting in the bedroom just a door down.

When Jaehyun knocks this time, he can hear the whispered ‘come in’ only slightly above the steady whir of the fan.

“I brought you some tea, Juyeonie,” he says quietly as he enters. “You don’t have to drink it, hyung used the shitty tea bag and not your fancy loose leaf, but you know me — can’t figure out a strainer to save my life.”

His joke, weak and more than a little substandard, surprisingly elicits a small _something_ from Juyeon — not quite a laugh, closer to a fast exhale than anything else, but something nonetheless. It cheers Jaehyun more than if spring were to suddenly explode into colour outside the window, and a silly, ridiculous part of him clings to it like a drowning man clings to plywood.

“Juyeon-ah,” he says softly, after setting the mug down on Juyeon’s cluttered bedside table. “Juyeon-ah, can I- would it be okay if I sat with you for a bit?”

Juyeon doesn’t verbally respond, but scrunches his knees up closer as if to make way for Jaehyun to crawl onto the bed. He does so, clambering awkwardly over the mound of pillows and blanket with his socked feet, until he’s propped himself up against the wall. Juyeon’s bed is in the corner of his room, and on the wall lining the length of the bed he’s hung up postcards and photocopied pages of books stuck haphazardly with bits of coloured tape and tack.

The bizarre realisation that this is the longest Jaehyun’s ever spent in Juyeon’s room gives way to admiration of how every inch of it breathes of Juyeon’s _soul_.

“Can I touch you? I don’t have to,” he asks, hands twitching with how much they itch to brush Juyeon’s hair back from his forehead.

“Please,” Juyeon says, and the sigh of relief that leaves Jaehyun’s lips then seems to leave his too when Jaehyun’s hand immediately comes to his thick mop of maroon hair, combing and revelling in the feeling of Juyeon’s warm scalp.

In this position, almost leaning over Juyeon’s curled up frame, the little bit of air that escapes from underneath the sweatshirt Jaehyun had thrown on top of the fan earlier hits him square in the chest. An inadvertent shiver goes through him, and, for the first time, Juyeon cranes his neck out of his blanket to look at Jaehyun properly.

“Are you cold, hyung?” His voice is hollow and a little splintered, but the concern still there - concern for Jaehyun, of all people - makes Jaehyun want to fall apart.

“I’m fine, don’t be silly,” he says quickly, but Juyeon’s hand reaches out from under his duvet to touch Jaehyun’s wrist gently.

“You can turn the fan off if you want. If you don’t mind talking to me. S’just the silence I don’t like,” he whispers.

Jaehyun stares disbelievingly down at him for a moment, before he seems to reboot once more. “Right,” he says. “Right, okay.” He sits up to reach over to the desk, but his arms are just a couple inches too short, so he ends up almost toppling over Juyeon to turn the fan off. He manages in the end, however, short of doing bodily harm to himself or his roommate.

“How are—”

Jaehyun cuts himself off abruptly. What sort of asinine question is that? God, he loathes himself — useless, helpless, Lee Jaehyun.

Juyeon, however, lets out another one of those half-breath-half-chuckles, and turns over onto his back. His eyes are still closed, and if Jaehyun looks closely in the darkness of the room, he can see dried tracks drawing down from his eyes like the meandering lines of lonely brooks.

“I’m...not so good, hyung,” Juyeon admits, eyes turning under his lavender eyelids, eyelashes fluttering gently against his cheeks.

“That’s okay, Juyeon-ah,” Jaehyun says softly, one knuckle skimming Juyeon’s much thinner cheek with all the reverence he can muster into one touch. Juyeon may not be okay, but he’s still here, and that — that’s all Jaehyun can ask for right now.

There’s a brief lull in the conversation, where Jaehyun is only touching Juyeon’s hair, his cheeks, his forehead, until Juyeon says into the quiet, “Remember when you tried my black cotton mask that one time in October?”

Jaehyun’s hand briefly stills in Juyeon’s hair, but he replies, “Yes.” He’s not sure where Juyeon’s going with this, if he’s just talking to talk or if there’s something significant about that day Jaehyun doesn’t remember.

“You hated it — remember? You were so excited to try it, but you said it was hard to breathe,” Juyeon recounts, and suddenly his breath is coming a little faster now, a little more laboured, and Jaehyun instinctively reaches for Juyeon’s hand that’s still hanging out of the blanket. Their fingers fold around one another, familiar counterparts fitting into the spaces that have been made for them until Jaehyun’s fingertips are pressed against Juyeon’s knuckles.

“I remember,” he says, because it’s all he can think to say.

“Yeah,” Juyeon mumbles like he’s fighting to hold himself together but the string he has is too thin. “That’s…that’s what this is like. The air’s too heavy. I can feel it- it’s on my shoulders and back and- and my neck. It’s all blocked up and thick. S’hard to breathe, hyung.”

And it sounds it too, each breath taxing, the rise and fall of Juyeon’s chest like heaves instead of inhales.

“Okay, that’s okay,” Jaehyun says, trying to keep the frantic edge out of his voice. “4-7-8, okay? Remember?”

“Yeah,” Juyeon replies quiveringly. He inhales, long and deep, even though it seems like it pains him to do so, holding it in his lungs until he begins to let it out in a trickle that Jaehyun can audibly hear. He does this a number of times, and each time, the inhales seem to come a little easier, but his hand stays - hard and unyielding - in Jaehyun’s like the accordion of their fingers is keeping him whole somehow.

Finally, when his eyes flutter, and his breathing returns to a regular in-out pattern, Jaehyun dares to run his thumb over the mountain range of Juyeon’s large knuckles.

“Juyeon-ah, do you- do you need me to call someone for you?” Jaehyun says _someone_ but they both know who he’s talking about.

Juyeon’s eyes flutter again under his eyelids but he doesn’t open them when he says, “Yes. I didn’t- I thought it would pass, so I didn’t call. But yes, I think- please call her.”

“Okay,” Jaehyun says. “Okay, I can do that.” He’s vaguely aware of how many times he’s said _okay_ in the last few minutes, is vaguely aware of the painful irony of saying _okay_ again and again when Juyeon clearly isn’t. “Do you want me to call her right now?”

Juyeon shakes his head quickly at that. “No. Don’t go. Please.”

“Okay, okay I’m not going anywhere,” Jaehyun agrees, settling back down into a more comfortable position on the bed. “What do you need, Juyeon-ah?” he asks, his knuckles ivory against Juyeon’s equally white bones. “Tell hyung what he can do for you.”

Youngjae had said he could ask - he had, hadn’t he? - but it feels so wrong and stupid and incompetent when those words leave his lips anyway.

Juyeon exhales. “Can you- do you mind reading to me?”

“What do you want me to read?” Jaehyun asks. His hand is so very shaky against Juyeon’s hair but he keeps running it through, again and again, because it’s all he knows how to do.

“Anything,” Juyeon says, like a gasp.

Hand still being clutched desperately in Juyeon’s, Jaehyun panics for a second. The only books on Juyeon’s bedside table are the ones he’s been reading for his thesis, and it hardly seems apt to read them to him now when they’re full of words about revolution and oppression and systemic failures.

The only thing there that isn’t a work book, lying threadbare with a spine cracked with lines, is Knulp. Herman Hesse’s 1915 masterpiece in the original German. Without thinking, Jaehyun reaches over and grabs the flimsy book in his hand.

Each page, he notices, is worn in the way paper gets when fingertips trail too many times over their edges and surfaces; almost like Juyeon had, in his relentless love for Hesse’s writing, tried to feel every word by tracing them over, again and again.

Jaehyun opens to the first page and sees in scratchy blue ink at the top right corner that Juyeon had scrawled the year 2015 — when he’d first acquired the book, Jaehyun assumes.

And then, with wavering, uncertain tones, Jaehyun begins to read.

Juyeon had been trying to teach him a little German here and there, encouraging laughter when Jaehyun made bold attempts - exclamations at accidents or daily misfortunes - and pseudo-solemn pedagogical efforts scattered about their conversations like when he’d point to a tangerine from Jeju on their kitchen counter and say earnestly, _man-da-reen-e._

In any case, Jaehyun now tries to muster up every memory he has of the German alphabet with its twenty-six letters, single ligature and three umlauts.

Slowly, hesitantly, he lets the syllables take form against his palate and lips. “ _Anfang de-er neu_ \- uh, wait- _noynsziga_ _yaruh_ —”

“Are you trying to read German, hyung?” Juyeon’s voice is as fissured as it had been when he first spoke, but something less empty - not quite amusement but maybe soon - tinges the barest edges of his tone.

Jaehyun pauses in his butchering of the Germanic language to flush. “Yeah? Sorry, I- do you want me to read something else?” he cringes.

Juyeon shakes his head, eyes still shut. When he doesn’t speak again, Jaehyun continues valiantly on.

“— _yaruh mustuh-_ musteh? - _unzeh froynd Knu_ —”

“It’s terrible, Jaehyun hyung,” Juyeon murmurs. His voice quivers tremulously, like he’s on the precipice of something, like he’s afraid to fall. Jaehyun doesn’t pay him any mind, simply reads slowly and steadily, foreign vowels and consonants curling at the tip of his tongue and Juyeon’s hand stays in his but the white-knuckled grip begins to change.

The clutching, frightened and desperate _please don’t go I’m so-_ changes and becomes scared but less — _you’re here and I’m here and you’re here too_.

At some point, when the sun has begun its early descent towards the horizon, Juyeon whispers, “I know it’s selfish but I don’t want you to go.”

Jaehyun breathes out before he’s even finished the sentence he’s reading, “Not selfish at all, Juyeonie, never selfish, I swear. I won’t go, okay? I’ll stay right here.”

Juyeon nods shakily.

And so, Jaehyun resumes reading, tripping and stumbling over Hesse’s German short story, and all the while, Juyeon breathes, in and out, like Youngjae’s words in Jaehyun’s mouth had reminded him to, and though tears course steady rivulets down to his temples and then ears, Juyeon still breathes, and that is enough for now.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, it gets better and it doesn’t.

Juyeon goes to see his therapist and his psychiatrist and Jaehyun waits outside in the warm looking waiting room and twitches because he’s nervous. He’s nervous because he’s never really had to say the words ‘therapist’ and ‘psychiatrist’ in tandem with people he considers his, and they sound scary and terrifying but he’s there because Juyeon had asked him if he’d come, in a voice that suggested he thought Jaehyun would say no.

Jaehyun would never say no to Juyeon, not to this nor anything smaller.

When Juyeon comes out, his lips form an approximation of a bow upwards but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Jaehyun wraps an arm around his shoulders and together they walk home in the chill of January.

So really, it does get better in a way.

Some days, Juyeon gets out of bed on his own, without Jaehyun having to shake him up to go brush his teeth and wash his face. He’ll uncurl from around Jaehyun - who sleeps in Juyeon’s room now, sometimes, most times if he’s honest - and step out into the living room, set the kettle on to boil while he brushes his teeth.

On those days, Juyeon sometimes smiles, these small, uncertain things that are lovely nonetheless — like when he catches sight of a bird building a nest on their neighbour three floors down’s window sill, or when Jaehyun makes a face because he can’t pop the cap off the anchovy jar (because he’s the one cooking now, and he sucks at it but it feels good to feed Juyeon).

In other ways, it doesn’t get better — because things like this don’t just get _better_ like that.

Some days, Juyeon still has trouble. Like low tide on sandy beaches, good days and bad days crest and recede, and Juyeon deals with bad days the way he deals with something shameful — like he’s taking up too much space. On those days, Juyeon might refuse to shower even though it’s been two days already since his last one, or he’ll catch sight of Jaehyun puffing out his cheeks as he darns up the holes in Juyeon’s socks and instead of laughing, his face will crumple and fall apart.

On those days, Jaehyun feels scared because he’s way out of his depth and Juyeon matters too much to him for him to be okay with failing. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, not at all, but at least he’s not alone and neither is Juyeon.

Youngjae calls as often as he can, and sometimes he and Juyeon talk for hours on end, until Jaehyun sometimes falls asleep to the sound of Youngjae’s bright voice like Los Angeles sun. Other times Juyeon and his little brother sit on the phone in silence while Youngjae does his homework or while Juyeon writes in his journal and reads when he can, and though Jaehyun doesn’t really understand why, he’s glad Juyeon never feels alone.

Chanhee stops by the most often, with his schedule being the most flexible out of their group of friends. He knows the exactly-right line to toe between fussing and teasing, and Juyeon always looks brighter on days when he visits, hair smoothed back by Chanhee’s tireless hands and skin flushed with warmth.

Jacob and Kevin sometimes come together or separately, but when Jaehyun comes home from work on those days, he always finds the flat a little tidier than he’d left it and Juyeon more at peace somehow. Not quite okay, but closer to it. Jaehyun crawls into bed on those nights with Juyeon to find that all of his own things that have begun to clutter Juyeon’s bedroom have been sorted neatly along Juyeon’s tabletops, and that there’s a lingering warmth that clings to Juyeon’s shoulders and hands from where Kevin and Jacob had held him. Some of the warmth finds its way to Jaehyun too, he finds.

Sangyeon visits most rarely, in part because spring is always a busy season for the fashion industry and that in turns means Sangyeon is busy photographing beautiful people in beautiful clothes for glossy spreads in the magazines on newsstands. Even so, when he does visit, he always stays the latest. Jaehyun will open their front door, exhausted from the day, and find Juyeon and Sangyeon curled up on the sofa together while Sangyeon’s voice drifts and meanders through his encyclopaedic knowledge of light and colour and physics so that Juyeon only has to listen and breathe.

Jaehyun doesn’t call his parents much anymore. Sometimes, when he has a moment here or there, he’ll call them once for every five missed ones he gets.

_I’m fine, eomma, just looking after Juyeon._

_Not yet, but better every day._

_No, that’s not- that’s not how it works, appa. I have to go, I’ll call you guys later._

Jaehyun counts every day in small victories. He counts the days when Juyeon reaches for the little bottles on his dresser himself with a glass of water already in hand, and he counts the days when Juyeon hooks his chin on Jaehyun’s shoulder at night and tells him in whispered tones about what he’d talked about in therapy.

Sunwoo tells Jaehyun he’s doing great, but it’s hard to believe him.

It’s hard to believe him when he doesn’t know what he’s doing and he’s terrified, and his eyes hurt from staring at screens at work where he edits sound files and staring at screens at home where he researches endlessly _What to Do When Your Friend_ \- and _How to Take Care of Someone Who_ \- et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

He only starts believing Sunwoo when, sometime in early February, he wakes up to find an empty bed. For a moment Jaehyun panics wildly, heart racing to beat its way out of his chest, but then he hears the front door opening and he rushes out of the room.

“Oh my god, Juyeon where—”

“Hyung, look!” Juyeon gestures and holds his palm out. Heart still in his throat Jaehyun pads warily over, only to see a small four-leafed clover in the centre of Juyeon’s curled hand. “I found it this morning when I went to take a walk. Isn’t it nice? I guess spring is coming early this year.”

Juyeon rocks forward and then backward on his feet, and his eyes shine with something Jaehyun hasn’t seen in a long while. Suddenly, it’s like his heart is that tender shoot in Juyeon’s hand, budding then opening, bright and eager under the first rays of sunlight because Juyeon is here — ruddy-cheeked and windswept and _here_.

Jaehyun smiles, eyebrows furrowed with how much he aches.

“It’s great, Juyeon-ah,” he says.

Juyeon grins tentatively back.

It’s not the end, not the star-spangled credit scene of Juyeon’s Blue Period, because there will still be days when he may find it harder to get out of bed than others until one day he doesn’t as much anymore. It’s not the end, but Jaehyun thinks for the first time that it might be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I know this chapter was a lot, so take a breather, drink something warm if you need it. My Curious Cat/Twitter DM’s are always open if you want someone to talk to! 
> 
> This is not at all relevant but I know The Gap isn’t the most popular jeans brand in South Korea, Guess just doesn’t have the same ring to it (for anyone who didn’t get the general gag, Gap has a sort of...dad-quality to their jeans). Also for the record, I swear I have nothing against The Gap. If you wear The Gap, KNOW THAT I SUPPORT YOU!
> 
> As always, your comments and kudos mean the world to me. If you catch any spelling or grammatical errors, please let me know!
> 
> The next update will be on Thursday, 18th of March KST.
> 
> If you want to chat or get updates on my work, come find me on Twitter (link in profile)!
> 
> \- Anon

**Author's Note:**

> If you want email notifications for when I update, you can subscribe to this work or my profile!


End file.
